Make It Okay
by Dannemund
Summary: Charon has a new employer in the Lone Wanderer; a look into the limits of the contract, Charon's untold backstory. Emily might not survive the ghoul if she won't stop being annoying! Rated M for sexual assault, regular assault, swearing, literally everything else that makes a M rating.
1. In Which Emily Is Introduced

Note: I am bad and I should feel bad. Future content warning... terrible things happen, as with all my stories. Enjoy.

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

It all came down to one thing: She hated ghouls.

He was relatively sure of it by the time she had dragged him to Rivet City, two days after her purchase of his contract. She had ordered him, with a one finger gesture, to park himself at the door. He had watched her walk off down to the Marketplace and had watched her speaking with everyone in the grungy tub, everyone except for _him._

She must hate ghouls; why else would she not speak to him? Even to order him around, as was her privilege, for owning his contract?

He knew she had spoken with Ahzrukhal in order to obtain his contract. She had spoken to _that_ bastard, but not to him. When she came to him to inform him about it, she had only held up the paper and lifted an eyebrow. Never said a word, just made sure he understood. She had stuffed the contract inside her shirt and watched him dispose of that slimeball, and left Underworld, all without a single word.

And after that? Days of nothing but non-verbal cues. As if his job was not hard enough _already_ ―watching out for the infamous Vault 101, the Lone Wanderer, who was not quite so lone when he was standing behind her. But she had not spoken to him, and he had never heard her voice. She had always made sure he was out of range or pointed at the ground, making him wait away from her while concluding her business and crooking that pale finger at him in a "come" gesture.

Charon fucking _hated_ it.

It was not that he was not used to the discrimination. That one he had figured out, never bothered to do anything other than ignore it. People were dumb; ghouls were dumb, too, for idolizing the smoothskins that paid them any attention.

This one... she did not seem to want to talk to any ghouls, unless it was necessary. She had led him to a Metro while on a job, looking for some kid gone missing, and run into a pair of ghouls making drugs. Pointedly ignored the conversation the one called Murphy had wanted to have and pushed past them to the tunnel access in the corner. Left Charon hanging, to glare at them, to ensure that they would not start shooting and to catch up with her down in the tunnels. Mirelurks all over that place, too, and she sucked at shooting with that pissy little hunting rifle of hers.

It was not in good condition, and she did not seem to know how to fix it for herself. He was tempted to offer to fix it but he knew how that conversation would go; he did not relish the awkwardness of a confrontation.

It was annoying to know that she had hired him and she did not want to speak to him, though. Was it a _game?_ He knew how to play the quiet game. Did that for ages in the Ninth Circle. Ahzrukhal had not been worth talking to and, unless ordered to, Charon had not bothered. The customers had tried, even if he had only spoken when he needed to respond. He half-expected this employer to babble like a little brat, given how young she appeared to be. Not at him; maybe with everyone else, but she would not babble at him.

She was very young, too. Long brown hair and big blue eyes. A chubby face that reminded him of a child, and always with a wide smile did she gesture at him to open his pack for her to fill. Charon hated children.

At one point he had decided he was probably going to go off on her if she did say something. No one had employed him and not spoken to him, in one way or another.

It was... _frustrating._ He vented that frustration on the things that attacked them in the wastes. Like when she was walking away from Canterbury Commons, a week after obtaining the contract.

That situation―she was calmly walking toward the highway, looking at her stupid Pip-Boy and a yao guai came flying at them. He had killed it, double-tapped it for good measure, before she even turned around to see what was going on. Her response was nothing more than a smirk and a head nod. "Let us go" without the words. Like he was a _dog?_

Nothing about the danger, nothing about his saving her ass repeatedly. He did not expect praise. It was a job, he obeyed the contract, he was taught that. But the silence being stretched out into the wastes...

 _Was it only for him?_

* * *

The first time he ever heard her speak was in Vault 106. Once opened there was little to stop Vaults from becoming anything other than ravaged ruins, lost to the wastes. Vault 106 had the distinct honor of being inhabited by insane Vault dwellers, which he and the girl put down. She was doing a little better by this time, having learned to aim for larger body parts and compensating for her ineptitude. Charon suspected she would do ten times better if she had a shotgun like he had, to make up the difference.

As they were walking through the Vault the air began to change. It turned blue, and Charon was temporarily distracted by what was surely a hallucination. The hallway suddenly appeared to be pristine, and people were walking through doors, away from them.

 _"Dad!"_ the girl yelled. She began to hotfoot it through the hallway, running at something only she could see. Charon was both surprised and alarmed―surprised at her voice, alarmed at her action. He kept up with her easily, though she was running faster than he had ever seen her move before.

The blue tinged air returned to normal, soon enough, and she was standing at the end of the ruined hallway, her breath coming hard, her face stricken. He closed the distance between them, kept his gun up, and watched her carefully.

"Where―?" she said, and her eyes drifted to the ground. She put her hand on her face and rubbed her eyes, then looked around again.

It might have amused him to see her startled reaction, upon seeing him behind her, if she had not looked so upset. It was a new expression, one that he had not had the pleasure of seeing before, and she was definitely more attractive and less babyish for it. But she was about to cry, and that was not good. Tears would get them _both_ shot.

She stopped herself, standing stock-still in the hallway, then turned on her heel and strode away. Perhaps she was mad that she had spoken, and broken the illusion. Perhaps the hallucination had made her angry because it was her father and she had been looking for him for a long time, according to what he had heard Three-Dog say. Looking for him long enough that the sight of him, even though not real, would draw her in such a manner to him.

Either way, it made Charon nervous. Angry employers sometimes took that anger out on him, because he was available, because he could take it, because they wanted to hit him anyway. He wasn't afraid of a beating but he did not want the evening's activities to include one delivered by the hands of a teenage girl.

It happened a second time when they were in the Science Labs. Again she gasped out a word or two, though she moved more slowly toward whatever hallucination she was seeing. A moment later, the blue air disappeared again and she halted her slow advance.

"It's not fair," she muttered. He heard her clearly in the gloom of the Vault. Her voice was nothing special. Almost a little annoying.

They moved through more laboratories. Vague sounds in the distance kept him alert and he almost walked into the girl when the air suddenly turned blue once more. She had planted her feet and was staring at the corner, her face screwed up in a weird way. Charon could not see anything other than the now pristine-looking Vault interior. He glanced at her, then at the corner.

She stood there for a few minutes, doing nothing. Her hands rose, and she reached out, then drew them back. He could hear the soft sounds of crying.

The contract provided him with little he could do, in this moment. He was allowed to exercise his judgement on dealing with threats; he was allowed to excuse himself, if he needed to perform bodily functions; he was allowed to speak as he desired unless the employer directed otherwise. But he was not allowed to voice judgement on an employer's actions, and he was not about to ask why she was crying. Nor would he ask if she intended to stare at what she knew was a hallucination, for as long as it appeared.

And it was not going away. The blue air stayed firmly around them, without wavering. This was a threat. He could step forward and drag her out of the room; remaining somewhere where one of the insane dwellers could sneak up behind them was not a good idea.

He thought she would probably kill him for doing that. She clearly wanted to stare at what probably looked to her like her father, possibly because she missed him. Charon could not think of another reason she would be distressed. Minutes stretched into a half-hour, and he had made up his mind to remove his employer from a potentially deadly area when she began to speak.

 _"Why?"_ she said. _"Why_ did you _leave?"_

His hand froze in the air, ready to grab her upper arm and drag her away.

 _"Why_ did you not realize that they would try to _kill_ me?" She was sobbing now, wiping her face with her forearms. Little trails of dust from the Vault outfit smeared onto her face. He watched her in silence, his senses alert to danger.

 _"Why_ did you think it was _okay_ to leave once I became an adult? That I wouldn't _miss you,_ that I would want a life _sheltered_ from the _truth?"_ She crouched down and covered her face. _"WHY DID YOU LIE!"_ she shrieked out, and the sound echoed through the Vault room, bouncing back onto Charon's exposed eardrum with pain.

He cringed at the sensation and immediately decided that now was a good time to get out. Ignoring her protests, he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the room. The blue air was gone, the visions disappeared, and he slammed a fist onto the door panel to close it. He released the girl in the hallway,where she stumbled to her knees, and cried into her hands.

Charon took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable result. Maybe she might try to shoot him or would order him to wait and never return. The latter had happened once before, and he'd been shot at by many an employer. Ahzrukhal had a fondness for kicking him in the crotch when he was displeased with Charon. ...He hoped the girl would not do _that._

She cried for a while but her sounds gradually faded away, and eventually she stood up and adjusted herself. She pulled out her rifle and stared away from him. He stood, without a word.

"Thank you, Charon," she delivered, instead of the bullet he had expected. "Thank you. That was smart of you."

He did not reply. There was nothing to say; he had fulfilled the contract. The action spoke more than any words could say. He did not bother to help her up from the floor, but he did notice the look in her eyes as she led him out of the Vault.

She did not hate him. She was... _afraid._ He would have smiled, but it felt like a criticism of his employer. Instead, he kept a grin inside his head and remembered that look.

It was a strange relationship, the two of them had.


	2. In Which Emily Asks Questions

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

The relationship was changing. Charon was relieved that she took to issuing commands with words. She gradually lost the fear. She no longer sent him away when she needed to speak to someone, though on occasion she would move further away from him, to disassociate herself from him. He understood now that she was concerned his presence might impede her trades, either through his intimidation factor or a perceived prejudice on the part of the trader.

The change in the air let him relax and enjoy the endless walking through the wasteland that she was wont to do. It had been two weeks since she obtained the contract, and she had given into her nature and had become a normal teenage girl.

But, Christ, did she give in. She started talking to him like he had expected she would before, and he often wished she would go back to the stuffy silent girl with those long pale fingers. She talked about everything under the sun that she could think of. From radio tunes to the smell of the Brahmin in Megaton; from the dirt in her hair to the view of the horizon from Arefu.

Perhaps it was not a game, but her attempt to keep him from throttling her to death for the word diarrhea she spat. It was not that he minded the topics she chose. It was that she would not even _shut up_ for two minutes and she drew a lot of attention. Outside of civilization, this inevitably brought down creatures from the hills and through the buildings they tramped around.

Inside of civilization, it brought unwanted advances and even some overt unfriendliness. She did not seem to care if someone was put aback by her enthusiasm for gab. She did stop frequenting those traders, though, and he suspected she was not as silly as she might appear to be. As far as the unwanted advances...

Charon had not had to protect a female employer for quite some time and though he was not allowed to think "romantic" thoughts, he understood the male perspective. She was an attractive and very young girl. Men were shot for less beauty, before. All men were dangerous to her.

The worst of it was in Megaton. Quite often she would leave him in the house when she wanted to run up to _"chat with Moira, girl stuff, y'know, sit tight please"._ ...He enjoyed the silence, in those times, but she started to unintentionally bring home that walking hemorrhoid from across the walkway. Whatever it was that Jericho wanted, Charon did not let him get. He had slammed the door on the man's fingers more than three times in the last two days and it was becoming a serious concern.

He broke the silence she brought into the room, her mouth curiously shut after witnessing his act of violence against the old ex-raider. "I do not like him," he stated, flatly. This was a response to her raised eyebrow and thinned lips.

"He's being friendly," she said.

Charon's hands twitched at the thought of this teenager trying to defend a lecherous lump of flesh such as that. "There is a fine line," he replied, "between friendliness, and hostility."

"If I ordered you to stop hurting him―" she began, and her words died on her lips at the expression he made. He knew it was an unpleasant one. _"Well!"_ she huffed. "Go upstairs. I have to bathe."

This meant she would be using the kitchen sink to wash herself. He walked up the stairs and took a position along the railing, angling himself so he could see the door. There would be no unwelcome intrusion on anyone's part; anyone who entered the house would be shot, friend or foe.

That was the contract. He protected her, even from the things she might not view as threats. It was _his_ opinion that defined a threat. ...In a way, he supposed that meant he had more freedom than most others would comprehend.

Splashing water, little shrieks at the coldness, and normal babble from her all floated up to his hearing. She went on about some experiment the Moira woman was conducting, then complained about some person name Creel that Charon had not had the pleasure of meeting. If he did meet this Billy Creel he might have to shoot him. The way she spoke of him indicated the man was a threat.

"Charon!" she said. He had not been paying as close attention as he meant to; he had been imagining shooting the man she claimed was making suggestive remarks in her direction.

"What is it?" he asked, shifting his arms to put them behind his back. His eyes were glued to that door.

"I asked you what your favorite food is," she blathered.

On the outside, he did not react. Internally, however, he was grumbling and shaking his head. He did not have to respond and would not.

"Are you gonna answer that?" she asked, and he heard a pop, the water from the sink draining.

He did not have to respond to that, either. It was an amusing diversion from the dullness of everyday existence in the wastes. She would become frustrated, and possibly angry. And she would stop talking to him for an hour or two, for which he would be grateful.

 _"Charon!"_ she said, her pitch rising in impatience.

She had never ordered him to respond. That had been a constant. She seemed to think he was simply incapable of petty talk. That was good because he did not want to talk to her, to become friendly. She was an employer, that was all. She fed him and kept his armor in good condition, and gave him parts for his shotgun. That was payment.

A loud banging noise echoed through the shack. At first he thought it was someone at the door, but his senses directed him downstairs to her shocked curse and loud hiss. And he smelled the blood.

Within seconds he was over the railing and at her side, grabbing up the arm she had slammed into the corner of the wall. She had slammed it hard, tearing open her skin on the rough corrugated metal. He thrust the arm into the sink, and ran water over the jagged cut until it was clean. Only then did he notice she was still naked, her face flushed.

 _Irrelevant,_ he thought. _Tend the wound._ It was in the contract.

He wrapped the shirt that she had lain onto the shelving over the cut, to stem any further blood, and withdrew a stimpak from his pocket, injecting her in the upper arm. The wound healed. He removed his hand from her wrist, and returned to his position on the railing above.

The contract held him to her wish of privacy as long as she was not injured or threatened.

Even if she was embarrassed.

* * *

It was a month, before she started asking the questions. She was trying to figure out how far she could push him. He gave credit to her youth; it was the quickest anyone had tried to figure out some sort of workaround to the contract. Even Ahzrukhal, the rank bastard, had waited three months to suss out Charon's true boundaries.

...Granted, he had spent the first two trying his new "toy" out on anyone he deemed worthy of a beat down, which was part of the contract. Charon could not refuse a standing order from an employer, as long as it did not place the employer in danger. He had caused a lot of violence because of that clause.

"If I ordered you to ignore your contract..." she said, while standing on a freeway overpass, looking north, "Would you be able to really act like yourself?"

Charon rolled his eyes on the inside. "The contract does not allow for itself to be ignored," he said, as stupidly as he could. It felt stupid, to answer such questions.

"So I can't tell you to go against it." She looked over her shoulder at him and raised her new weapon, a pretty little sniper rifle she had picked up from a hostile encounter. "What happens if I rip it up?"

"I would not suggest you do that," he said, and left it at that, an unspoken threat.

Of course, she was young and dumb. She pushed the issue while letting loose rounds to the mountainside, picking off yao guai that he could not hit with his shotgun. He could not even see the brutes, from the overpass. She knew that. That was why she was practicing from such a height. So he could not interfere. Her questions were dumb, but she understood enough to know she could not order him to stand down against the mutated bears.

"Would you kill me, if I tore it up?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at him again.

"It has never happened, before," he answered, in a voice that made her flinch.

"O- _kay,"_ she said, and turned back to the view. "Well, then, what happens if I were to be a threat to you?"

"Regardless of personal danger, I cannot cause you intentional injury," he replied.

"Intentional, huh." She grinned and he knew where the conversation was going. "So I could shoot at you, all day long, and you couldn't hurt me back."

"It is probable," was all he said.

"But you could place me in a situation where I might get hurt." She rested the butt of the sniper rifle on her hip and put a foot up onto a piece of asphalt. "Accidentally?"

She was a little smarter than Ahzrukhal, he figured. He did not answer that question. Technically, he didn't have to. He only answered the other questions because it would be over with that much quicker.

"What if I placed myself in danger?"

"You have done that, repeatedly," he said.

"I mean..." She stood up on the piece of rubble and placed both her feet onto the edge of the overpass, looking down. "What if I tried to kill myself, like throwing myself off of this?"

Charon grumbled out loud. "If your intent is to self-terminate, I am allowed to let you do so," he replied.

"I'd have to make it clear, huh." She kicked a piece of rock over the edge and watched it fall. "And if I fell, by accident?"

He exhaled. She was irritating him; he supposed it was the straight-forward way she asked the questions, innocently curious. None of the sneering, the shifty eyes, or even the hesitation that some of his former employers had evinced. Especially Ahzrukhal; but Charon was starting to feel stupid for comparing the Vault girl to the dead ghoul.

With some effort, he pushed his personal flair into the words. "I suppose I would be scraping your dismembered remains from the ground below," he said. "In order to get you to medical help, or otherwise retrieve my contract from your corpse."

She chuckled, and moved herself backward from the edge. "That's fair!" she said, brightly. "What about verbal stuff. Can I order you to call me a specific name?"

"Yes."

"What if it's an insult?"

She'd already picked up on that part. Another credit to her intelligence. "No," he breathed out, trying to remember the last time he'd been so annoyed.

"So I couldn't tell you to call me asshole or something, even if it was the name I was given?" she asked, smiling.

"I have never encountered someone with an derogatory swear for a name," he answered, and placed his arms behind him again. His eyes hit the sky, looking anywhere but her smirking face.

"Well, moot point, anyway," she said. She picked up a rock and tossed it into the air, catching it. "My name is Emily. Call me that, okay?"

"Understood." She watched him staring at the sky―he could see it from the edge of his vision. He watched her look down at the rock, and watched her arm rise up.

"Please do not do that, Emily," he said.

She snickered. "Alright," she said. "Let's go kill some raiders. That always puts you in a good mood."


	3. In Which Charon Is Frightening

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

It was almost two months before Emily decided to make a serious go of finding her father. It wasn't that she didn't have the caps or the gumption―she just couldn't bring herself to set foot in another Vault. It had taken her ages to get over the embarrassment at Vault 106, with the strange visions. Charon hadn't said a word about it―and she'd been so terrified of him before that moment, she hadn't even bothered to imagine he could be considerate of feelings.

He was like a robot. Sometimes. He would let out the personality that sounded honest. Sometimes. Instead of acting like a calm, exacting programmed machine. Instead of that blank board of a face, sometimes he actually had expressions. Mostly it was aggravation, but it was a start!

She was gonna aggravate the hell out of him, if that was what it took. Until that was all that he could react with, just to see how he reacted. See what the contract would let him do. And test her own fear, to get over it. She was still a little unnerved having a living, breathing monster follow her around. He never _slept!_ It was so weird.

But there was that incident with the sink, and she was glad he was a robot at that time. He hadn't even glanced twice, just fixed her up and went back to previous orders. Man, that had been _embarrassing!_ Emily still felt chagrin for letting her temper get the best of her.

There _was_ a person in there, though. Her earlier fear had been based on her experience with ghouls, which had not been positive―especially that puke Ahzrukhal, man, was she glad Charon had shot him! It took all of her willpower stay neutral around Charon when she first got the contract, and she'd probably ignored him a little too much, but she was too afraid he might exhibit some of that ferocity that feral ghouls had.

Feral ghouls... still scared the shit out of her. But she was gonna work on that. That was why she'd gotten the contract to begin with, even though talking to Ahzrukhal had made her want to pee her pants in terror. She would beat that fear because beating it meant she was a little bit stronger, and she'd never been one to be afraid.

Her aim could use some improvement, though. She laughed at herself for that. But that was another reason she had Charon.

Charon was better than that pukey Ahzrukhal. _Way_ better.

* * *

Emily went back to Megaton, once more, to restock ammo and supplies. Charon had his head turned the whole time, watching out for her. That was something she'd been lacking since she left the Vault, a viable protector.

Something she'd been missing since her father left her high and dry, in the Vault. She was angry at that. Everything that she had said, to the hallucinations, had helped her release some of that anger, but it came back with a vengeance once she'd found out about Vault 112 from Dr. Li.

Megaton was ever the same. She wound her way up to the house, distractedly playing with her keys as she climbed the ramp. A breath of Brahmin shit wafted up and she crinkled her nose in disgust. She moved to the door, intent on unlocking it.

Charon growled from behind her. Emily turned her head and realized she hadn't been paying attention. Jericho was standing beside her at the railing, blocking her door. His face was amicable, but body language told her he was looking for more than mere friendship.

If he hadn't been so old, she might have. Shame on her, she had a _bad_ rep with the boys in the Vault. Worse than the rumors about Christine Kendall, and Emily's rep was real. _Poor Christine._

She turned and faced him, and smiled sweetly at him. Two could play at that game. Charon wasn't gonna like it, though.

"Hi, Jericho!" she said, staring him straight in the eyes.

"Looking good, kid," he said, and a sly smile was winding itself through the scars on his face. "That's a new rifle."

"Oh, _this_ thing?" she asked, and slung it off her back. "I picked it up in a church." She held it out for him to take.

Jericho's hand brushed against hers as he took the rifle, intentionally. Charon growled again and took a step closer. Emily knew that he thought Jericho was a threat; she had dropped the issue the last time the ex-raider had followed her home and pointedly ignored the advice Charon tried to give her. She was too good at playing a fool to stop now, though.

Didn't mean it didn't hurt to pretend to be stupid. Her father's face in her memories, brought out enough pain to cause her eyes to glisten. She had disappointed him more times than she could count, flirting with boys.

Emily blinked rapidly and watched Jericho playing with the rifle. He whistled in appreciation. "It's a damn nice rifle," he said, handing it back.

"Better be," she said, laughing. "I already paid Harith to fix it up, and that _wasn't_ cheap."

Jericho grinned at her, and his teeth were horrible. Nope, she told herself. Even if it was part of life in the wastes. That was nasty. "You gonna be here a while?" he asked, in a hopeful voice.

"Just for today," she said, jingling her keys. He focused on her fingers.

"Alright," he said. "Was gonna see if you wanted to, y'know, go for a drink."

"Thank you," she said, "but I have to walk, like, _eighty bajillion miles_ tomorrow. Don't wanna do that with a hangover!" She grinned back. "I appreciate the offer, though."

"Anytime, kid," he said. He waved his hand out as he walked away, coming close to hitting Charon. If the ghoul had been an owl his head would have spun around backwards, watching the man leave.

Emily unlocked the door and went inside without a word.

* * *

She sat on her bed, later, and wondered what went through Charon's head when she talked to Jericho. Why, exactly, did he consider the man a threat? Was it because of the contract, or was it his personal opinion that Jericho was danger?

She couldn't sleep. It was nerve-racking, thinking about finding her father. Her mind slipped away to find thoughts about the ghoul, to distract herself from what she would be doing the next day.

Emily guessed that Charon thought the old raider was gonna hurt her, maybe in in a physical sense, if he managed to get into her pants. "Charon?" she asked, looking at the doorway. She'd asked him to watch the front door. Not ordered. She didn't like to order him, anymore. It was a little sad how quickly he would follow orders.

"What is it?" he asked, appearing in the door way, arms behind his back again. Man, he must be pissed. He only did that when he was being aggravated.

"Tell me why Jericho is a threat," she ordered. That was the first time she'd ever ordered him to speak.

Charon didn't hesitate. "I am obligated to protect you from harm. The man is an ex-raider and, therefore, a threat."

"But he's not a raider, _anymore,"_ she said. "Or is it that I am not allowed to have personal relationships while I hold your contract?"

Charon didn't answer. She rolled her eyes.

"You are allowed to 'do' who you please, as long as it does not become a threat," he finally said, and his voice was definitely strained. Emily had a sudden image of her father in her head, acting the same way, telling her to stop "playing" with the boys in the Vault.

She gritted her teeth. He'd never been happy with that. But he'd done his own stupid things in the past. She wouldn't turn out like he had, abandoning her kid to those assholes in the Vault. She would be just fine, doing what she wanted. "Go away," she told Charon. "Go watch the front door. Let me know if it does any tricks."

Charon turned and walked away.

* * *

The stupid Vault was easy to open. It was ridiculous how little protection 112 had, from the outside world. Emily stepped into a room, wearing the 112 jumpsuit, and looked over the pods that she'd been directed to by the Robobrain. Well, it was a start. Her dad had to be here, somewhere.

"Charon, I'm going in."

He didn't reply. She shot him a glance and saw he was still irritated with her for the morning's activities. That brought a smile to her face. The helmet sat crookedly on his head, and she cracked a grin.

Yeah, she was annoying him just enough. Before they'd found the Vault she'd dug out a few headpieces and made him try them on, for shits and giggles. Her favorite was the shaded glasses and ball cap, but the look on his face had been just murderous enough to stop her from going any further. They'd settled on a combat helmet.

"Dunno how long this will take," she said, crawling up into the lounger. "You gonna be okay?"

"There is enough food," he answered, his voice dead serious. "No immediate threat."

Emily laughed to herself. "O- _kay,"_ she drawled, mockingly. "See you after a bit."

She laid herself back and stared at the screen ahead of her. It was like falling asleep...

* * *

It was probably hours later that she peeled herself out of the lounger and threw up on the floor, while her father came to her side and Charon watched in silence.

"Sweetie, what are you doing here?" her father asked.

It was an awkward conversation. That was for sure.

...And she didn't even ask him why he'd left. She promised to escort him to Rivet City and enjoyed having her father back, after having lost him for almost two months. It was― _ridiculous,_ she thought, after the fact. Her, clinging to his arm, being a silly little girl again. Charon never said a word. After a while, Emily forgot he was even there.

"Your companion is curiously silent," James said.

"That's just Charon," she answered. "He only gets in his stride when he's shooting stuff."

And then, all that shit that happened with Project Purity―

Emily cried for a long time. Charon had to drag her away from the purifier, into the tunnels. It was only when she was being shot at did she come to her senses and propel herself outwards. She didn't collapse again until they hit the Citadel and even then she just sank to her knees, and put her hands on her face, and didn't move for a few hours.

Charon did not say a word. He left for a few minutes but returned shortly and stood at her side, the whole time. She was grateful that he would not speak what was on his mind, or make any comments about the ill-fated venture.

And she was grateful that he was by her side, because now everything was going to get that much harder.

Emily stood, and entered the Citadel. She would complete the job. She would do what her father wanted of her, continue on with the family dream, and then she would get the hell away from the D.C. ruins and stay away.


	4. In Which Charon Averts A Threat

Note: Warning, Emily's getting hot and bothered with Jericho in this chapter.

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Emily was tossing pieces of "squirrel" up into the air, catching them in her mouth. She hadn't forgotten what horrible things had happened in the past, but it was amazing how easily the mind could gloss over stuff. Even a simple little diversion like this, sitting in her house in Megaton, could help her push the bad thoughts away.

Charon was standing behind her. She leaned back on the couch, her head dangling over the edge. "Could I order you to catch this, in your mouth?" she asked him.

He made a breathy noise and did what she had come to understand was a suppressed eye roll. He didn't answer. "Aww, c'mon, Charon."

"The outcome of that action is indeterminable," he said, in response. That meant he could try but might fail, and so he didn't want to try. He didn't seem to think he would ever fail when it came to shooting at monsters in the wastes, or people. He had no problem shooting at shit.

Emily whipped her head back forward and got dizzy, and laughed at herself. A sneaky little thought in the back of her mind niggled at her brain. She frowned. "I think I'll go out for a while," she announced. "Tomorrow we will head out to Lamplight, but I'm gonna hit up Moriarty's tonight."

Charon said nothing. Emily stood and shoved the rest of the meat in her mouth, chewing loudly as she opened her locker. Her armor was in need of repair―she ought to do that first. And she knew she had a dress somewhere in there. If she was going out, it was gonna be Vault rules. Maybe Tunnel Snake rules―she sniggered to herself. No, Butch would get his ass handed to him in a saloon like Moriarty's. He'd always been wishy-washy when it came down to following through.

"I'm going upstairs, Charon, I'm gonna change. Stay here," she told him. He didn't move. When she returned she was wearing the pink thing, snapping the top shut as she walked down the stairs in heels. She didn't care much for heels. But they made her legs look good, she thought.

"Well, how do I look?" she asked Charon, and turned around in a circle.

He squinted a little, and looked confused. "Like a girl."

Emily scoffed. "You know that's not what I meant."

He did not respond. Apparently "like a girl" was all he could manage. "Guess I should consider that a compliment... wait. Does that mean you think I look like a _boy_ in my armor?" she asked him, scowling.

"No," he replied, evenly. "You always look like a girl. No difference."

She laughed. "O-kay!" She put her hair back into a ponytail and wrapped it around itself, then grumbled. "I need to get a mirror."

"...I do not like mirrors," Charon said, and Emily's mouth dropped open, a bobby pin falling to the floor. Those were the first unprompted words he'd made since she'd obtained the contract eight weeks before.

He stared into the air above her head and did not say anything else. At a loss, Emily reached down and retrieved the pin and put her hair up. "Are you going to come with me?" she managed, after patting her hair down one final time.

"Unless you order otherwise, I will," he said.

"Not what I asked," she muttered. "I meant, would you like to come?"

"There is significant threat in Moriarty's Saloon," he added. That meant yes, near as she could reckon.

"What, if I get drunk, you think I'll throw myself under the nearest available warm body?" she growled.

"I would ask you not to do so," he answered. "That would not be pleasant, for either one of us."

It took her, the master of subtlety, a moment to figure that out. She dropped her chin again, and stared at the ghoul. _"What!"_

"The closest 'warm body' to your location is usually myself," he said with a dead-pan expression, and Emily burst out laughing.

"Oh, I thought you would never be capable of humor, Charon!" she sputtered.

He looked a bit offended by that and she almost fell over herself trying to apologize. "I didn't mean―I'm sorry―"

"You are my employer, Emily," he said, staring straight at her, with a face that she would best describe as murderous. "You are allowed to speak as you wish."

Her face burned. "Well, do you _want_ to come with me?" she asked, since nothing else came to mind. That was embarrassing!

"I shall follow," he said, and she just grumbled.

"Alright, but if I get a chance―" Emily laughed at herself in her head, _to get laid,_ "I might order you to come home."

"Perhaps you should leave the contract somewhere I can find it," was all he replied with. "In case you get killed when I am not there."

She scoffed at him.

* * *

Five hours later the moon illuminated Emily as she was jammed up against the side of Jericho's house, mashing her face into the ex-raider's mouth. He had horrible teeth, but goddamn was he a good kisser! Her thoughts were jumbled, her head spinning, and she couldn't even taste all the whiskey he'd probably been drinking. Or the whiskey she knew she'd drunk.

She moaned loudly into his mouth and her hands were already busying themselves, trying to unbuckle his leather jacket. Jericho grunted, moved his mouth onto her neck, and picked up her legs and wrapped them around his hips, grinding into her. Strong hands dug into her thighs, holding her firmly. His pants were tight, and shit, she could feel _every inch_ of him through the leather, rubbing her right where she wanted it.

Oh, God, it felt so damn _good._ Much better than those stupid little boys back at the Vault―this was a _man,_ a fully grown _man,_ taking her with force. She needed it―

Her eyes focused on a shadow, blurry in her drunkenness, standing behind them. She draped her arms around him and ran her hands along his neck, winding them tightly into the collar of his leather armor. Jericho slammed his crotch into hers, her underwear so thin it tore in half with his motion. Her head flew back and banged against the wall, and she gasped in pleasure. Something wet began to trickle from the back of her head onto her neck. _Ah, shit!_

She couldn't even feel pain, she was so drunk! _This―could be―bad._

She closed her eyes and mouth, moaning, feeling his teeth on her neck, as he ground himself into her. God! She wanted this, so bad!

The blurry shadow moved closer and she realized it was Charon, moving toward the two. "Cha―" she said, before Jericho grabbed her lip with his teeth and began to chew on her mouth. She moaned again, feeling the wave of bliss, before it was abruptly ended.

Jericho was ripped off of her, and Emily tumbled onto the walk. She watched in a haze as Charon dragged him toward the railing opposite them. _"Stop!"_ she said, pushing herself up from the walkway, a hand out toward the ghoul. "Stop, Charon!"

The ghoul froze, but didn't let go of the man. He glared at her and put a foot out onto Jericho's leg as he lifted it to kick out at Charon, pinning him to the walk. Jericho swore like nobody else she'd ever heard, his arms striking the ghoul in the lower body. It must have hurt; he wasn't pulling his punches, and the sounds it made were hard. Charon did not react.

"Leggo," she said, holding out a hand palm down. "G'home, Charon."

"I cannot," he replied. "This has gotten out of hand. I will protect―"

"I'm your _employa,_ Ch―Charon," she slurred, and drew herself up as tall as she could. She coughed, and bile rose in her throat. "You will folla my orders. I'm, _I'm_ goin' home, an' you come w'me." She looked down at the ex-raider, his face beginning to swim in her eyes. "I'm _sorry..._ Mebbe 'nother time." She hiccuped and more bile rose.

Charon dropped the man rudely, and removed his foot from the the ex-raider's leg, then strode to her side and waited for her to begin moving. Emily felt a little dizzy, still felt the wonderful little tingles running up and down her thighs, and stumbled as she tried to make it fifteen feet to her shack.

The ghoul caught her, carried her by one shoulder to the metal door and broke the knob with one turn. Emily groaned, dizziness overtaking her. With the slow reaction time she had, at first she didn't realize he'd made the lock unusable. Charon dropped her onto the couch, face-first, and she heard an agonizing scraping noise.

"Oh, fuckin' _hell!"_ she swore, into the cushion. It was ages before she managed to push herself up and lay herself across the couch arm.

The― _fuck!_ He'd dragged the locker where she kept her weapons across the floor and flush against the door. "I'm gettin' you a, a _house_ key," she mumbled to the room in general, her vision failing her.

"Drink," she was ordered, and a bottle thrust into her hands. She drank. It was water. "Do not fall asleep," he said. "Drink as much water as you can, Emily."

"Why―" she sputtered. The water hit her stomach like a brick. She groaned in pain.

"Hangover cure," he muttered. "You will be in a better way than that asshole, tomorrow."

"S'not... _asshole,"_ she murmured, and tried to force herself to drink. The room was still blurry and spinning, her eyes moving back to the same spot over and over after drifting off of it. She tried to focus on Charon.

"You were caused pain," he said, firmly. His voice sounded weird in her head, a little echo-y. She smiled at the weirdness.

"I'm so drun', _I, I, I..."_ she trailed off and blinked rapidly. "Can't feel," she muttered.

Charon didn't reply, only pressed another bottle of water into her hands.

She passed out sometime while drinking the second bottle of water.

* * *

In the morning, when they were out in the wastes, she did agree that the water had helped―but not enough. She still felt sick to her stomach, and she was pissed. Pissed because she would have had some probably enjoyable sex, if she'd remembered to send Charon home before Jericho had shown up at the bar. She kicked at the ground and felt queasy.

Charon had not said a single word to her, today. She felt like slapping him for interrupting them, but the split on the back of her head was reason enough not to do so. He was right. She was caused pain and she was paying for it, along with all the booze.

After a half-hour of walking she parked herself on a rock and held her head, coughing. "Ugh!" she moaned. "I should have taken the day off!"

No response. She looked up at the ghoul and saw him scanning the distance. Always on the lookout. Never slept. Followed her everywhere unless specifically told not to. Followed orders as given, unless they contradicted safety. ...Safety that was determined by his own criteria.

"What happens if I fire you?" she asked him.

"I would return to Underworld, until you rehire me, or sell my contract." He glanced at her. "If you are unhappy with my actions, you may correct them."

"Interesting that you would make that connection," she muttered. "Why are you so damn twitchy about any man around me? Except for my dad, you―" Grief flooded through her. Dammit, and she was doing so good at ignoring that.

"As I said before, Jericho is a threat."

"Yeah, but―" she squeezed her eyes shut against the sun. "Why, I mean. _Why_ is he a threat?"

Charon turned to face her, wearing a familiar look. "In my experience men like Jericho almost always cause trouble, which leads to violence. Violence is a threat."

Emily winced. "Alright, alright," she said. "Not pushing it." Her Pip-Boy beeped. A notification of a new radio signal? She tuned into it and listened.

 _"It feels like you left home a long time ago, but... I know you're still out there."_

Emily cried.


	5. In Which Emily Leaves

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Emily immediately turned around and walked straight to a Vault entrance. Charon followed her, unsure of the new direction; she had listened to the message on the radio repeating itself for about fifteen minutes, and never said a word to him about it.

If she was still mad at him for the events of the previous night he was not concerned. He had fulfilled the contract, dragged that slimeball off of her when she started to bleed from a head wound that was neither attractive nor something to ignore.

Charon had no words for their actions, against the wall of Jericho's house. He had seen worse, many times. Ahzrukhal... He was glad the fucking rat bastard was dead.

Emily led him through a door and into Vault 101.

It was over in a relatively short time frame. Emily heard the arguments from both sides. She read an entry on the Overseer's terminal. She investigated the reactor level. She released a black man from a jail cell and had a short conversation with him. Charon kept his mouth shut and admired the relatively pristine interior of the Vault. Those hallucinations had been spot on, back in 106. 101 was in excellent condition.

The end of the struggle was when Emily told the girl called Amata that there was danger outside that she had never seen the likes of, before. Charon knew she was telling her about the Enclave. Both girls cried a little. He turned his head away from the display because of privacy.

And then they left, and were locked out. Emily did not say a word about it. Charon shrugged it off. She was not going to tell him and it was none of his business.

They continued on the trip to Little Lamplight. Charon shot and killed many a creature. It was relatively boring. Emily did not say a single word the entire time. This was so out of character for her, he wondered why. He found himself staring at the back of her brown head far too often for his own comfort.

She stopped outside of the caverns, then backtracked to a little outbuilding and sat down on a chair just inside. With one hand on her chin, her elbow on the table, and staring out into the distance, she just sat there. For a long time. Charon waited patiently, occasionally glancing at her to make sure she was not trying to hand signal him again.

Honestly, he preferred the talkative Emily to the thoughtful one. At least when she was talking, she was easier to manage; he just had to ignore her cheerful babble. She was still grieving―it took a long time, to get over the death of a loved one. Perhaps the visit to the Vault had made it that much more real to her.

She fell asleep on the table and Charon waited.

It was hours before she woke up, stretched her back out and stood, but instead of going into the caverns, she simply sat back down and stared out at the distance again.

Charon was hungry. He ate, and set a box of food on the table for her. She pushed it away. "You have to eat," he reminded her.

"I'm not hungry," she said, breaking her silence. "I'll eat later."

"You have not eaten in over twelve hours," he said.

"I'm not hungry."

And she sat there, doing nothing. Charon grumbled to himself. After another hour he reminded her to eat, again.

"Still not hungry, Charon," she said. "Go away. Go... _shoot_ something."

He obeyed, but not because he wanted to shoot anything. After disposing of some Super Mutants that were wandering nearby, he returned to find her sitting on a couch just outside of the caverns.

"I have returned," he announced, and stood in front of her.

"That was awful quick," she said, leaning back on the couch with her hand over her face. In the other hand, she held his contract. He shot a look at the worn paper and eyeballed her.

"The wasteland is not an empty place," was all he said.

Emily sat up and stared at the worn piece of paper in her hand, and ran both thumbs over it. "What happened to make you end up in Azhrukhal's employ?" she asked.

Charon did not answer. It was not something he wanted to think about.

 _"Answer me._ That's an order."

"I caused the death of my former employer," he said, his voice calmer than his head was. "Not in an accidental fashion. I was considered damaged property, and sold at reduced price to the first bidder willing." It had been a long time ago. The persons involved were all dead. Including Azhrukhal.

"How much did he pay, I wonder?"

"Twenty-five caps," Charon answered, promptly.

Emily laughed at that, at him. "That's _pitiful,"_ she said, staring at the contract.

He was angry, of course. The murder of his employer prior to Azhrukhal had been shameful, and was something that he could chosen not to do. To this day he could not recall the events that led up to it, no matter how often he had tried. He had stopped trying many years ago.

As punishment he had been thrown into radiation, to die or become ghoul. He had hoped he would die, but he did not and that was a separate punishment that he would live with until he managed to get himself killed... somehow.

It had not been easy, for Charon the ghoul.

When he became a ghoul he was cast out of his home, sold to a nasty piece of shit for a ridiculous price, and forced to beat bar patrons for over sixty years. To beat ghouls who were only unable to pay because they had been enabled by that bastard for years upon years, until they could no longer afford the price. Ghouls who were only trying to escape the horrors of the wastes, the horror that they had become themselves, or the horror that they saw when they looked into their own hearts and realized their crippling drug addiction was not going to go away.

If Charon were not obligated by the contract, he might have gone down the same path. He growled at Emily for laughing.

"Oh, scary," she said. "You gonna cause my death? Lucky number, _three."_ She eyed him, and her expression was hard. The laughing, cheerful Vault 101 girl was gone. She had been killed during the trip to 101.

"I will not," he said. "It is in the contract."

Emily grabbed the paper by the top with both hands and ripped it in half. Charon was too shocked to say anything at first, but collected the torn paper as she dropped both pieces to the ground. "This is..." he didn't know what to say.

"There ya go, then," she said. "I no longer hold your contract."

Charon stood and set his jaw, holding the contract. "If you think simply tearing up paper is going to invalidate my employment―"

"Doesn't it?" she asked. She crossed her legs and put an arm out along the couch.

"It is only _paper,_ Emily!" Charon's voice rose in anger. He crumpled the pieces in one hand. "It is only _paper,_ and the real contract is in my head!" ...Was that correct? It _felt_ correct.

She raised both eyebrows. "So you _were_ brainwashed," she said.

"You may call it that. It is survival," he answered. He thrust the paper at her. "Take it back." That was right. He _knew_ it was.

"Why?" she asked. "It's broken. It doesn't _mean_ anything―"

"It means something," he said, and glared at her. "Even if I have the contract in my head, the paper is physical proof of who my employer is." He looked down at the crumpled paper. That... _was_ how it worked, right? He could not remember.

"And if I refuse?" She stared right through him with her wide blue eyes, and his own blues met and kept the stare.

"You cannot," he said. He did not blink. If she refused, he was on his own and he would _die._ With no one to protect under the contract, he would be incapable of feeding himself. He would starve to death, or go feral. He could not survive without the contract. That _was_ right.

"I'm not touching that paper again until you tell me how I let you go. I'm _sick_ of being followed around by a shotgun-toting, scary-as-shit ghoul who just admitted that he's a fucking _murderer!"_ She was yelling, now, and pushed herself up off the couch. He could still see over her head, but she was giving him an appropriately intimidating look from below his chin. "I'm sick of you stopping me from potential 'threats' which are really just an excuse to keep me from making _friends!"_

His hand shook from the strength with which he was clenching the paper. "You do not understand," he said, his voice fading, starting to waver. He had not been this scared since he was thrown to the radiation. "I _will_ die, Emily."

"Everyone fucking _dies!"_ she screamed, and shoved him backward with both hands. "Everyone I _ever_ loved has! And you―" she gritted her teeth and made a frustrated noise. "I need you to protect me from the wastes, not from myself!"

"If you wish for me to leave you to your own devices, you only have to tell me to wait somewhere."

Emily groaned and put her hands up to her face. "I've done that, and it ends badly, too, Charon. I didn't expect you to follow me while I was―with _Jericho―"_ She looked up at the sky and closed her eyes. "Have you no sense of propriety?"

"I do," he said. His hand went forward toward her. "Take it back. Correct my behavior. Do not leave me alone in the wastes. I have been there, before, and I no longer remember how to get home."

She scoffed and pushed his hand away. "Home is Underworld, and you know how to get there."

"It is not," he said, and pushed his hand toward her chest again. " _Take it back,_ fire me, or shoot me in the head. Do _not_ leave me alone, in the wastes."

"Then tell me how to break your stupid fucking contract!" she yelled. She pushed his hand away and threw a finger into his face. "If I travel with you, I want it to be a normal relationship―not this―whatever this shit is!"

Charon paused. The contract did not allow for this. He had no response to make. She was panting, staring at him. He did not say anything.

 _"Fine."_ She lowered her hand. "Fine, if it's gonna be like that." She walked away from him and turned, and made the stay put gesture from so many weeks ago. "I might be back to get you. _Might."_

And she walked down into the caverns, away from him, leaving him holding the contract, torn yet unbroken.

Charon waited for a week before returning to Underworld. It was all he knew to do.


	6. In Which Emily Comes Back

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

When Charon walked back into the Ninth Circle, there was an unfamiliar ghoul tending the bar. He went directly to the counter and told him that he intended to go back to bouncing. It was only his reputation in Underworld that stopped the ghoul from making any objection. Charon ate when he was hungry, and stood in his corner as he always had. He did not have to rough up any bar patrons. No one dared to push him, with that look on his face always so close to murder.

It was like that for a few more weeks, before Emily came looking for him. He had thought she left him on purpose, and had not come back to find him because she was mad. But he could not stand in front of Little Lamplight for longer than he had food to travel. He would not die of starvation while she still... technically... owned his contract. That, he had folded carefully and put away. It was safe.

Emily came into the Ninth Circle singing "This Land is Your Land" at the top of her lungs, and booted the door open with one foot. She looked like shit, dark circles under her eyes and her skin paler than he had known her before. She had lost weight and was the bearer of a few new scars, mostly burn scars, peeking through a raider badlands outfit. Her hair had been tied up behind her head in a messy tangle of who even knew what and she was carrying that sniper rifle from the church.

"As I went _walking,_ that ribbon of highway, and saw _above me,_ that endless skyway..." she trailed off, and smiled at him. It was a bad smile, a very bad smile.

Charon did not smile back.

"I told you to wait at the fucking _caves!"_ she shrilled, across the room. It went deathly silent in the bar.

Charon pushed himself off the wall where he had been leaning, and approached her, slowly. "Emily," he said. "You have returned. Shall we travel together?"

She snarled at him and struck him with the barrel of the sniper rifle. It was the first time she had ever hit him in the face. "Let's go," she said, brightly. "Get along, get along, get along little doggies, get along little _doggies_ and be on your way," she sang.

Charon started to think that she had gone insane in the caverns, or the Vault that the G.E.C.K. was supposedly located inside.

* * *

She had not gone insane, he learned. She had spent a long time being questioned by the Enclave, and it had some deleterious effects on her ability to cope with stress. Once she got him to the Citadel she had calmed down reasonably enough to explain herself, but not satisfactorily.

"Colonel Autumn had this holotape of Woody Guthrie," she said. "And he played it all day and night, when I was not being questioned. I started to sing along as a lark." She scratched at her mess of hair. "It was something to hold onto," she added.

Charon nodded. Being able to distance oneself from a traumatic event was something he understood, as well.

Emily stood at the door of the Citadel with her rifle slung across her back and looking wild. Paladin Bael was eyeing her up, likely trying to figure out if she was a raider. Charon growled and pulled her behind him, giving the man a glare.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake," Emily said, and shoved Charon out of the way. For as much weight as she had lost, she had replaced her fat with muscle. She was physically stronger, now. "Bael, let me in. I've got to talk to Rothschild about Vault 87."

Eventually, they let her in. Charon followed.

* * *

Emily had calmed down even more after they traveled back to Megaton. She needed to get ammo, she said, and repair her rifle. She wanted to try to fix it herself, using her spares. Charon followed, and did not speak.

At her door, she swore at the damaged lock and pulled on it. He broke it again for her. She smiled sweetly at him.

"Do you _ever_ sleep?" she asked him, the first evidence of the old Emily showing.

"Do not need sleep," he answered.

"How do you not _die?"_ she asked, and pushed a Nuka-Cola into his chest.

It was cold. He looked up to the top floor, and saw that she had a machine up there. A working Nuka-Cola machine. How strange.

"I do not know," he said. "It is just something that I do."

"Guess that makes you the perfect guard-dog," she muttered.

"I am not a dog," he growled. She was definitely returning to her old self. He was starting to get annoyed.

"No, if you were named Cerberus or something, I'd understand―" She was rummaging in the fridge, and stood upright, whacking her head off the top shelf. "Oh, my God. That's why your name is _Charon,_ isn't it. Because of Underworld's theme."

"Yes," he answered.

Emily took a box of potato crisps from the shelf and a bottle of scotch and sat herself on the couch, eating in silence. "What was your name, before Underworld?" she asked.

"I do not remember," he said.

"You don't remember much about your life before Underworld?"

He grumbled, but didn't answer the question.

"Maybe _those_ guys know how to break the contract," she murmured, drinking her liquor. She did not come up for air for a while. Charon was not sure that was a good idea.

"I would not get my hopes up," he replied, and wondered if she was drinking for any particular reason.

"Well―" She winced and rubbed her throat. "We've got to start up the purifier, soon. I told them I was gonna go get my biggest gun and come back." She stood, and yawned, and narrowed her eyes at him. "Anything you want to do before you die, Charon?"

"You expect the battle to be that difficult?" He was still holding the cold soda in his hands. He hadn't forgotten it, he was feeling the chill through his hands. It was strange, but he enjoyed the feeling.

"Oh, they're gonna _know_ we're coming," she laughed. It was a manic laugh. "So if you want to do something before we leave, that you couldn't do after..."

"You know I want for nothing," he said, putting the soda aside.

Emily nodded. "Alright, give up the contract," she said, and held out her hand. Charon reached into a pocket and painstakingly unfolded the paper. He placed it in her hand. "I'm _not_ taking it back," she said. "It's just a piece of paper."

She sat down on the couch, lit the paper on fire in an ashtray and watched it burn. Charon strode forward and snatched it out of the ashtray, flattening his hand and putting it out. "How could you be so―" Without the paper contract―and with the potential for death at the Memorial―if she died, he would not be able to find another employer. "Stupid," he mumbled to himself, and she laughed.

"I'm illustrating a point, Charon," she told him, and looked up at him, her blue eyes almost glowing with excitement. "You see?" Emily smiled widely and gestured at him.

"I do not," he growled.

"Well, you just _criticized_ me..." she shrugged. "Maybe the contract isn't really in your head, after all."

He _had._ He stared down at the pieces of paper in his hand, singed around the edge and his hands that were burnt from extinguishing it. What did that mean?

"Do something else you aren't allowed to do," she said. "Oh, but please don't kill me, I'm helping with the purifier, clean waters and all that."

But what? He wasn't sure how restrictive his contract was, except for the massive amount of violence he was allowed to cause. Maybe... he could refuse now? "No," he said, and a small smile began to crease along his face. "No, I will not."

"Aww!" she said, but when she turned her glance back to him she realized what he meant. She snickered at him.

"Stop laughing at me," he growled, his mood instantly turned off by her childish antics. "This is a serious situation."

"I'm allowed to enjoy it," she said, pointedly. "And so are you." She put her legs up over the arm of the couch and laid back onto the cushions, looking up at the ceiling. "Feels good to be free, huh?"

It did not feel much different. Maybe that was his quiet personality, on its own. He crumpled the paper and dropped it onto her as she laid across the couch. "You may destroy it now," he said.

Emily grabbed the papers and stuffed them in a pocket. "Maybe later," she said. She stretched a little. "So, is there anything you want to do, before we go take down the Enclave?"

"I do not know," he said. He stared down at her and snatched up her scotch bottle, from the coffee table.

 _"Hey!"_ she said, when he started to drink it.

"This is terrible," he said. "Why do you drink it?"

"Alcohol is wonderful," she said, dreamily, and put her hands into the air. "Makes you happy. It might taste bad but that makes up for it." She turned her head to look at him. "You wanna get hammered? I got more booze on the shelf."

"Does not sound like a good idea." Charon placed the bottle back down and realized that he'd been drinking after her, which was something he would have never done before.

It was novel, not being bound by the contract. He could say what he wanted, even tell her to shut up, when she babbled like a stupid girl. He could tell her her ideas were stupid; stop her from running into a firefight, he could kill whomever he wanted, including that raider asshole from across the walk, he could think... thoughts...

He could _leave._

Overall that sounded a better idea than sticking around with a teenage girl who had a history of annoying the piss out of him, who often taunted him or treated him like he was an inconvenience, and who he knew he would eventually try to kill out of sheer irritation.

Charon started to walk away. He did not know where he would go, but it was better to kill random strangers than his only living ex-employer. Emily sat up and watched him moving toward the door, and yelled. "Hey! No, no, no!" she said. "No, don't _go!"_

"I do not have to listen to you, as you recall," he said, pulling the door open. The lock popped and the doorknob came off in his hand. Charon growled in annoyance.

"Ah, great, you broke my fucking door again." Emily snatched the knob out of his hand and stared at the hole in the door, sighing. _"Fuck!_ Now how do we get out?"

He stepped backward with one step and raised a boot to kick the door down. "Stop!" She grabbed at his armor, moving in front of him. "Will you please quit _breaking my house!"_

"How else do you suggest we get the door open?" He stared down at her, at her hand on his armor. He lowered his foot.

"Oh, cut it out, I'm not scared of you no more," she grumbled, and let go of his sleeve. "I'll get my tools. Do _not_ bust my door, Charon!"

He stood, patiently, while she rummaged around and brought out a tool box. "Don't go rushing out the minute I get this open," she said, "because I'm not done talking to you."

"Still do not have to listen," he said, and a grin came across his face.

Emily crouched down by the knob and peered into it with a grim look on her face. "I still want your help, you know."

Charon snorted. She had no idea what she had just done, releasing him from the contract. He moved away from the door and sat on the couch―for the first time in ages, letting himself relax, and drank some more scotch. It was shit. But everything in the wastes was shit in one way or another. He finished the bottle in two long drinks.

He watched her jamming a screwdriver into the door. She had put her messy hair back to rights and it flew around her head, as she animatedly tried to repair the knob. It was a nice color, complimented her eyes, he thought.

His head felt a little fuzzy. What was that? He had never been drunk. Had not been allowed to be drunk. It interfered with the job, protecting the employer. He could... enjoy it. Happiness was a stranger to the ghoul.

Suddenly, he was alarmed. If becoming drunk usually ended in what Emily had done with Jericho, so many weeks ago, would he have the same reaction? He had seen plenty of smoothskins lose themselves in drink, falling asleep at the bar of the Ninth Circle, but... he never slept.

Emily swore to herself. "You might have to break down the door," she said.

"I think the scotch is working," he said, his words feeling too big for his mouth.

Emily looked over at him. "Aw, what the _hell,_ man!" she growled. "Quit drinking all my booze!"

"You were correct," he muttered, feeling the looseness overcoming his body. "It does feel good." The world grew brighter around him.

It _did_ feel good.


	7. In Which Charon Gets Drunk

Note: Charon gets drunk and a little... weird. Entirely out of character for him, but it's my personal take on the situation. Emily gets assaulted in this chapter and the next.

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Emily put away her tools and kicked the bottom of the door, growling. _Great, just great._ The heap of a ghoul had broken the door so badly she would have to have him kick it open, just to get out of the house. That meant she'd probably have to have Walter come down and take a look at it, in the morning, after Charon slept off―well, he wouldn't be doing that, he never slept. He was sitting on the couch, staring into the air with a weird smile on his face.

Maybe it was a bad idea to try to break him of whatever conditioning he'd been subject to, but she wasn't sitting well with the idea of being enslaved. While she was away from him she'd helped a couple of runaway slaves at the Lincoln Memorial, and she found her opinion from before was selfish. She should have wanted to help him for him, not for her own personal whims. ...Even _if_ he wouldn't have let her alone to bone anyone she pleased.

That was in the past, now. She no longer wanted anything to do with Jericho. That fucker had helped her get back into the shack when she first returned from Raven Rock, and flat-out attempted to rape her in the living room. Yeah, she'd kneed him in the groin. She ought to have shot his grimy ass! And yeah, he'd complained that she'd wanted it bad, back then. But this wasn't back then.

Emily put away the toolbox and grabbed the bottle of scotch. What was the limit for a recently-freed brainwashed ghoul bodyguard? He'd drank almost an entire bottle of forty proof booze.

"Feels good," he repeated.

"Well, _yeah,"_ she replied. "That's what I said. But you can't be drinking all my booze. You don't wanna end up like _I_ did that one night."

"Pretty hair," he said, and she widened her eyes in surprise.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.

Charon stood up and grabbed her by the head, turning it to the left and right. Emily yelped and moved backward, trying to dislodge him. Aw, shit! He had a firm grip on her hair with one hand, and was running his torn fingers through the other side.

"Let me go, Charon!" she said. Man, that fucking _hurt!_

"Mmmm?" he said, but released her hair. She growled, and smoothed out her hair, glaring at him. "It is pretty," he said, like that was an excuse.

 _"Hard, ain't it hard, ain't it hard, to love one who never did love you,"_ she mumbled, and stopped herself. Shit, that fucking holotape of Autumn's was still running around her head. She brushed out her hair with her fingers and mouthed the words to the song to herself. She felt broken, like a skipping record. It was not pleasant.

"Are you going to fix the door?" she asked the ghoul, who was still standing in front of the couch. He was apparently watching her play with her hair. The song faded away in her head.

"What?" He turned to look at it. "I will break it," he said.

"Well, I can't fix it, so you'll _have_ to break it." She scoffed and crossed her arms. "That is, if you are still planning to leave!"

Charon blinked his eyes and stared at her. "I am drunk," he said. "Not... a good idea."

"Then you can sit on the couch until you sober up, and we'll talk about it," she said. "I'm going upstairs." She climbed the stairs and opened the bedroom door, and pulled off her leather jacket.

 _What the hell, man,_ she thought. After all that shit with the ZAX computer calling itself Eden, she had debated on not ever coming back to find Charon. But she had felt terrible for that thought―he was so nervous that she would break his contract in the wastes, so upset that he would not be able to care for himself. Shit, that was half the reason she'd resolved to break the contract before he pissed her off so badly by being fatalistic about it. He'd rather die than be free, that was _dumb!_

And Hannibal, at the Memorial―Hannibal had answered a lot of her questions, so she was certain that Charon was a slave. Nobody should be a slave to anything, even a government so corrupt as the Enclave's vision of a real America.

Emily shuddered. She hummed a few bars of "Pastures of Plenty" and changed out of her leather armor into a more comfortable dress. Wasn't as comfy as the old Vault suits, but she refused to wear those anymore. It was just another form of slavery, binding her to a dying dream of the Enclave.

She closed the door behind her as she left, and turned to see Charon standing behind her at the top of the stairs. "I told you to sit on the couch," she griped.

"Do not have to," he muttered. He was blinking rapidly.

"If you're drunk, then you really shouldn't be climbing stairs," she said, and grabbed his elbow to turn him around. He laid a hand on her shoulder, firmly stopping her from moving him or herself. "Don't be an _asshole,_ Charon!" She tried to pry his fingers off of her. _Damn. A lot stronger than I thought._

Oh, for _fuck's_ sake! He was playing with her hair again. It was hilarious, the look on his face as he ran his hands through the brown glory her parents had given her. Like he hadn't been allowed to touch a woman in _years―_

She was frightened by that. Shit, he probably _hadn't!_ Had the contract even allowed him to? Emily lifted a hand and grabbed his, holding it firmly, but he kept moving it through her hair and the action was pulling her hair out of her head. "Ow! Fuck, _stop!"_

"Do not have to," he repeated, a little more firm.

"I don't want you to touch my _fucking hair!"_ She jerked away from him, but he tightened his grip on her hair. She was back in the same position as before, except this time he wasn't letting go.

She breathed hard, in and out through her nose. Whatever the fuck was going through his head―dammit, she should have hid the fucking booze, she hadn't even thought about his reaction to alcohol. Hadn't remembered that he didn't sleep, probably wouldn't pass out like an ordinary person. "Charon, please let me go," she said, her eyes turned to the floor, head bowed down. He was running those ragged fingers along the back of her scalp now, and she shivered in response to the touch.

"Do not want to," he corrected himself. "You have... pretty hair."

"Yeah, it ain't gonna be so pretty when I have to knee you in the nuts to get your hands off my head, _asshole,"_ she growled.

Charon laughed. It was an alien sound in the air of the shack, something that she had never heard before. And never wanted to again. It was an unpleasant laugh, a laugh that told years of unspoken malevolence. Emily quailed in his grip, and began to mumble.

" _Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see..._ " She grabbed his wrist and dug her fingers into the flesh, feeling the bones under the muscles, intentionally trying to hurt him. _"This world is such a great and a funny place to be..."_

She shrieked when he turned and dragged her downstairs by her hair, stumbling a little on the steps. She fell and he pulled her over to the couch, where he picked her up by one shoulder and her hair, and sat her down onto the cushion. He stood behind the couch.

 _"Oh, the gamblin' man is rich and the workin' man is poor,"_ she chattered. Her face was on fire, and she wished she could shut up for two minutes and figure out how to get him to let go. _"And I ain't got no home in this world anymore."_

Charon brushed her hair back, running fingers through it. After a moment, he paused and pulled her head backward so far that she was forced to look up at his face. The expression he was wearing was enough to make a lesser person wet their pants, it was so full of anger and―something else, but she did _not_ want to speculate on that.

 _"Let me go!"_ she said, again.

"Are you going to drink?" he asked her.

Emily shuddered involuntarily at the thought. "Not if you're gonna stumble around the shack, dragging me by my fucking hair!" she hissed. "You drank all the scotch, anyway!"

Why was she not fighting against him? She could easily grab up a gun and shoot him, but she didn't want to. For all her feelings against ghouls before―no, she didn't feel that way anymore. Charon had been loyal to her as a bodyguard, saving her from her own stupidity, keeping monsters off her ass― _"They took John Henry to the graveyard, laid him down in the sand..."_

Shit, his face was getting closer to hers! She reached up her hands to push him away and he lowered his hands onto her neck, running thick fingers around her flesh. She stopped herself, and blinked back tears. "What the hell are you doing?" she asked, her voice wobbling.

Charon tightened his grip and picked her up by her neck. She shrieked again and climbed her feet backwards as he pulled her to a standing position, over the back of the couch, drop-kicking him in the crotch.

"You _made_ me do that," she yelled. He hadn't let go, his arm was extended out and away. Now she was leaning against the couch, her head away from his body, her knees and bare feet slipping down to dangle behind the couch. Her hips came to a rest against his.

Oh, _fuck!_ He had an erection! She kicked out again, but he tightened his hands even more and pulled her to a standing position behind the couch. Little spots of white began to flash in front of her eyes, and her hands scrabbled for purchase against his rough flesh.

Abruptly, he pulled her against him and let go of her neck, moving his hands to her shoulders. She gasped for air, rubbing her neck, and he breathed hot air down her back. "This... is what you do, when you are... drunk?" he said, making it a question on the last word. His hips moved forward by an inch or two and her eyes popped.

 _"Every locomotive comin' a-rolling by, hollered, there lies a steel-drivin' man, man, man,"_ she sang, under her breath, fast and shaky. "Charon, please, let m-me go. _Don't do this!"_

He did let go, but he did not move away. His breath down her neck was hard panting. She trembled. "Is this not... what you do?" he asked. He sounded slurred, and she knew he'd drunk the bottle quickly―it must have caught up with him, finally.

"Well, you sure as _hell_ don't _half-strangle_ someone!" she snarled. She tried to edge away but she was trapped between the couch and him, and he was noticeably aroused. If she were drunk herself, that would have been a sobering thought. He was too close to doing something terrible―

"I have never been drunk, before," he said, slowly.

"Well, park your ass on the couch and stop acting like a _goddamn rapist!"_ she shrieked, and pulled herself away. "Goddamn _asshole!"_

Charon snapped a hand out and grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. "This is what you did. With Jericho."

 _"No!"_ she yelled, and hit him in the wrist. "No, that is _not_ what I did!"

"Then... what?"

Emily set her face and scrunched up her mouth and glared at him. She said nothing, just stared into his weird blue eyes and drew her brows together.

"What was it, if it was not this?" he asked, his words a little more coherent.

"It was not _this,"_ she hissed, unable to explain. " _Let go of me_ or I will cut your goddamn hand off and _shove it up your ass!"_

Charon pulled her back to him and she flung out her free hand, her palm impacting with his nasal cavity. He paused, and growled, and tightened his hand on her wrist.

 _Fuck!_


	8. In Which Charon Does Something Terrible

Note: Sexual assault in this chapter. Things get even weirder.

Update: Comma hunting. Sorry about the mix-up, having a hell of a day.

* * *

 _I'm going down this road feeling bad,_  
 _I'm going down this road feeling bad,_  
 _I'm going down this road feeling bad, bad, bad,_  
 _And I ain't gonna be treated this way..._

Emily yelped as Charon turned her to the side and pushed her up against the bookshelf, one hand on her wrist and the other on her neck again. He squeezed, making threatening noises, and she choked, spitting at him. Her nails dug into the ripped skin on his hand, pulling away a strip as she lost her grip.

 _I'm going where the water tastes like wine,_  
 _I'm going where the water tastes like wine,_  
 _I'm going where the water tastes like wine, wine, wine,_  
 _And I ain't gonna be treated this way..._

She couldn't _breathe_ ―his hand was so tight on her throat that she knew she would have bruises, _if_ she managed to get free―but that wasn't gonna happen, _was it―_

The door was busted and she couldn't run away, and he was perfectly capable of kicking in any of the doors in the house even if she did get free of his grip. She stared up at him, her vision starting to get blurry, spots in her eyes again.

 _Takes a ten-dollar shoe to fit my feet,_  
 _Takes a ten-dollar shoe to fit my feet,_  
 _Takes a ten-dollar shoe to fit my feet, Lord, Lord,_  
 _And I ain't gonna be treated this way..._

Charon moved closer to her, and lifted her up onto the top of the bookshelf. He wrapped his arm around her waist, strong fingers digging into her side and ripping the fabric of her dress. He thrust forward into her, painfully pushing his crotch into hers. She felt her eyes start to roll up in her head and her fingers went weak on his hands, her consciousness fading.

 _Your two-dollar shoe hurts my feet,_  
 _I said your two-dollar shoe hurts my feet,_  
 _Your two-dollar shoe hurts my feet, Lord, God,_  
 _And I ain't gonna be treated this way..._

Oh, God, was she really gonna die like this? The Lone Wanderer, savior of the wastes, strangled to death in a drunken attempt at rape by a formerly brainwashed ghoul who probably had no idea what went where because he'd never been allowed? Her eyes moved back in forth in her face, trying to comprehend the blackness in the back of her eyelids. When had she closed her eyes?

 _Fuck!_ She had to―

 _I ain't gonna be treated this way,_  
 _I ain't gonna be treated this way,_  
 _And I ain't gonna be treated this way, Lord, God,_  
 _And I ain't gonna be treated this way..._

The world swam around her, and a pressure was removed from her neck. Charon leaned his head forward and she could feel his rough cheek muscles against hers, his hand dropping to her shoulder. What―

She slowly came back from the edge, her hands twitching at her sides, groggily shaking her head from side to side. He was just― _standing_ there, his hips pressed into hers with her back curved against the bottom of of the stairs. One arm was still wrapped around her waist but the other hand was moving, traveling down her shoulder, onto her chest and past her breasts, coming to a rest on her lower abdomen. The hand was trapped there by the closeness of their contact.

 _"Emily,"_ he breathed, into her ear.

Her eyes shot open and she began to fight again, pushing her hands up against his face. She pushed him back, fingernails digging into his chin and cheek. She couldn't talk just yet―her throat was too raw―but she made a rough growling noise and pushed with what strength she had left.

He jerked, in surprise maybe, and the bulge in his pants moved against her. It felt―goddammit, of _course_ it felt good, she hadn't been laid since she left the Vault the first time, and she hadn't even managed to finish that shit with Jericho―

She moaned, unintentionally. The sound was weird, between them, with her fingertips digging into his face, his arm around her and pressing his other hand into her stomach. _Fuck!_

He stopped fighting against her, and she hesitated because she was so damn surprised at the sound that she couldn't figure out what her brain was thinking. Charon looked down at her, between her fingers that were on his face, and ground his hips into her once.

She gasped and her fingers twitched on his face. Oh, _fuck_ ―He felt better than Jericho, that was for damn sure, but he was a fucking _giant_ compared to that old asshole―she moaned again, the tingling feeling moving up her spine. _Goddammit!_

"Is... that it?" he mumbled, his raspy voice cutting through her head. She panted, partly from the struggle against him and partly because he was rubbing against her now. "This is what you did." He moved his hips against hers.

 _"Ch―"_ she coughed, trying to clear her throat. It felt like he'd crushed her windpipe, she could barely draw a breath. _"St―"_

He wasn't paying attention. Grinding his hips into her faster, but gentler, a steady pace. Oh, _God!_ She jammed her mouth shut against a long moan, the tingling feeling jolting up and down her spine. She curved up against him, and her hands were loosening their grip on his face.

He smelled like old leather and warm flesh, scotch on his hot breath. Her senses came alive. She could _smell_ him, she could _feel_ the rough muscles of his jaw under her hand, she could _feel_ the warmth coming from him through the leather. She could _see_ the dips in the muscle under his chin, _see_ bones peeking through the flesh, stark white against a red background. She could _feel_ him through his pants, a rigid mass straining the material, pulsing as he moved against her.

 _"Stoooop,"_ she moaned out, pressing her palm against the bottom of his chin, pushing up his face.

"This is right," he said, and did not stop.

Emily's head flew backward with the escalating pleasure, his body against her lower body, impacting with the wall. It wasn't as painful as when Jericho had slammed into her. She stared at the ceiling, little breathy gasps coming from her mouth as he moved faster. Oh, _God!_ It felt _too_ good―she had to―why would he not― _stop―_

She jerked upright against him, her head thrown back, and a loud and long moan ripped from her abused throat as she came against him. He grunted and lowered his hand onto her ass, pressing her into his hips, still grinding into her with the steady pace. Her voice rose and rose in the shack, until she was sure her head was going to explode. His hand was still trapped in between them, the subtle pain of his bones enhancing the waves of pleasure rolling through her lower region.

 _"Stop!"_ she shrieked, when it became almost too painful to bear. Her entire body was shivering against him, now. She shuddered and her hands fell from his face, going limp around his shoulders, as he slowed to a stop.

"That..." he began. She pulled away from him, bringing a hand around in a hard slap.

 _"Fuck you!"_ she yelled at him, and pushed away. She reached down and shoved his hand off her stomach. _"Fuck you, Charon!"_ she croaked.

He blinked at her, slowly. His face contorted into a grimace, an angry expression. "That is what you do," he growled and his hand behind her dug into her flesh, painfully so.

She pushed away as hard as she could and was pressing herself into the metal behind her, angrily snarling at him. _"No!_ That was _you assaulting me,_ you _fucker!"_ she coughed out. _"Get off!"_

"Did it not... feel good?" he said, his voice angry. Her face must have been lethal.

Emily yelped when he moved his free hand up and grabbed her hair again, and she flat-out screamed when he moved her onto his shoulder and carried her kicking and screaming up the stairs. _"Let me go, you fucker!"_ she shrieked, flailing her arms against him, fists slamming into his back.

Goddammit, why had she _ever_ wanted to help him?!

"We are..." he grunted as she kneed him in the chest, carrying her into her bedroom, "...going to do this, until I get it right."

 _Oh, what the fuck―_ "Then listen to me, _fucker! Put me DOWN!"_

Charon threw her onto the bed. She landed on her back and lifted a leg to strike out at him, but he'd stopped and was standing in front of her without moving. "I will listen," he said.

"Fuck," she growled. "Goddammit! _Fuck!"_

He looked confused. He was definitely still drunk, his eyes blinking slowly.

"Why the _fuck would you do that?!"_ she asked, rubbing at her throat, her leg still up in the air and ready to kick out at him. "Why didn't you _stop!"_

"Apologies," he mumbled. "Paying you back."

She clenched her teeth so hard it hurt. "What the _FUCK_ did I _ever_ do to _deserve THAT!"_

He held up a hand, fingers splayed out, and looked at it. "The contract," he rasped. "You... freed me."

Somewhere inside that half-melted drunk-off-his-ass head, he had mixed up a personal wish to thank her with his drunkenness and her prior behavior while drunk. Maybe he'd felt some actual attraction― _fuck,_ she thought, it wouldn't be strange, even _ugly_ women were good-looking in the wastes―but this was out of fucking _hand!_

 _"No more!"_ she said, pushing herself upward on the bed. _"No_ more of this! You fucking tried to _kill_ me, _you asshole!"_ Her neck was still sore, her voice raw from his choking her.

"I did not intend to," he rasped, closing his fingers into a fist. "That was why I removed my hand."

She laughed, hysterically. "Oh, my _God!_ And you thought that would _make it okay?!"_

"I will... make it okay," he said, and moved forward.

Emily shrieked and kicked out at him, but he fell across her and _damn_ ―he was heavy as hell, but that wasn't as surprising as his voice in her ear talking soft and low. "Tell me how to make it okay," he rasped. "Tell me what to do, I do not know what to do."

Everything was quiet, for a long time, as she tried to collect her thoughts. The only sound in the room was their breathing, her short fast breaths and his heaving ones.

"First, you can get up off of me," she answered, awed by the hurt in his voice.

He did so, pushing himself up without effort, but remained over her. "Then?" he asked.

She stared up at the ghoul. Acre after acre of ruined skin, patchy hair and exposed bone. It was not at all a good thing to be staring at, a ghoul who was intent to make her... feel good, she shivered, but was so out of practice or―or _inexperienced―_

"Then, you sit on the bed and let me get back up, and we will _talk_ about it," she said.

Charon sat on the side of the bed and she peeled herself off the mattress. The earlier activity had made her work up a sweat and now she was sticky-feeling. It was a bad feeling. She groaned and her arms hurt from the effort of moving, from pushing him away, from fighting him off.

"Being drunk doesn't always make me want to have... _sex,"_ she started, awkwardly. "Sometimes, I start fights."

"We fought, as well," he said, point-blank, and she laughed despite the shitty situation and her exhaustion.

"That is true," she replied, the laugh fading away. "But you can't _just―_ push up against someone and _force_ them to feel―"

"It did feel good," he rasped. "That is why you made so much noise."

She rolled her eyes. Her legs felt like jelly even _thinking_ about that―she sighed. "But you _can't_ just do― _that,"_ she said. "You have to―to _ask."_

"And that makes it okay."

"Yeah," she said, pushing her hair out of her face. "As long as the someone says _yes."_

Charon moved closer to her, and she flinched. "May I make it okay?" he asked her.

"Are you _seriously_ asking me to have sex with you, after― _after you damn near choked me to death_ and _forced_ me against the bookshelf?!" she shrilled. "I don't _believe_ this!"

"I will not hurt you, if you do not wish it," he said. "I am sorry, if I did, before."

"Maybe you should wait for the scotch to wear off―"

Charon put a hand on her shoulder and she flinched again, her hand rising up to smack him away. She breathed heavily. It was very scary, to think that he might―

"Let me make it okay, Emily," he whispered, and a shiver went down her spine.


	9. In Which Emily Is Not A Friend

Note: Fixed a continuity issue, my bad. Durn it

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

He lost himself, in his head. The alcohol had made his head spin, and he had let his mind slip away. When he came back to himself he was on his knees, standing up on the mattress in her bedroom, naked from the waist up, and Emily was laying on her back underneath him.

She was almost entirely naked, and looking up at him with a strange look in her blue eyes. She was scared of him again?

Charon blinked hard and looked away. He focused on the wall, the holes with their dusky darkness bleeding into the room. He swallowed a lump that had had lodged itself in his throat, and shook off the last of the scotch.

He felt... _strange._ His pants hurt him. He knew he was erect, could feel the flesh pressing against the leather, and it was powerful. Everything about him was powerful, in one way or another.

"What is this?" he asked, in confusion.

"What?" she raised an eyebrow at him. "Seriously, Charon?" She scoffed, rolled her eyes and looked away. Her arms went across her chest, covering her breasts. "Jesus _Christ,_ man."

Charon sat back on his heels and rubbed his eyes. They hurt, too. A lot of things on him hurt, his chin, his cheek―his erection, most of all.

"I do not recall what I did, when I was drunk," he said. "What is this?"

Emily sighed. She would not look at him. _"Well!"_ She pursed her mouth.

"Were we... about to engage in sex?" he asked, awkwardly.

"You asked _very_ nicely," she said, flippantly.

He jerked backward, horrified. "Why―" No, he did not want to, not that he would never, but she was... _Emily._ And he was sitting on the bed with her, in a very compromising position.

"It's alright, if you want to," she said. "I said yes." She still would not look at him.

"You do not want that," he growled. He pushed himself up, placing a hand on the wall to steady himself. He began to lift his leg to remove himself from the bed.

"I didn't want it earlier, and you still made me," she muttered. Charon froze.

What had he done, while he was inebriated? He would have been sweating, if he could. He could not remember anything. That might explain why he could not remember murdering his employer before Azhrukhal―if so, then Emily was extremely lucky that he had not murdered her. He pushed himself off of the mattress and looked for his shirt, his jacket, anything, to cover himself with.

"Fucking _hell,"_ she muttered, from the bed. "Steak to cook, but no fire." She scoffed. "I was actually looking forward to it, this time," she told him.

"I do not remember the last time," he said in response, "and I am sorry if you are disappointed, but you do not want this." He enunciated the last four words sharply. His jacket had been thrown halfway under the bed, along with the pink mass of cotton she had changed into. That, he did recall, right up to admiring her hair and climbing the stairs―

He had hurt her, grabbed her by the head. He grumbled to himself. That was not something he wanted. He wanted to leave, to get the hell out of the shack, to get away from the mostly naked and bruised smoothskin on the bed... _bruised._

Bruised. His eyes swept up from the floor under the bed, to her body. There was a handprint on her stomach, bruises deepening around her neck, one wrist had fingerprints on it.

Maybe she was not so lucky, after all.

Her eyes met his and she was wearing an exhausted look, trails of tears down her face dried onto the skin. It was a pleading look, and he twitched painfully against the inside his pants. "Charon," she said, looking right at him. "What is it?"

He snorted, grumbling to himself under his breath. He pulled his jacket from under the bed, and disentangled his shirt from the inside. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, and a mound of bouncing flesh fell sideways. Charon averted his eyes and turned around.

"Well, you'd better tell me why," she said, huffily. The mattress creaked behind him as she rose from the bed. _"Why_ I don't want it, as you said."

He exhaled and pulled his shirt over his head, catching it on the ratty hair on the back of his head. Emily placed a hand on his still-bare back, and he flinched.

"There are consequences," he muttered, trying to ignore her and pulling his shirt down. She did not remove her hand, but kept it on his muscles, soft against the remaining skin. It kept his shirt pushed up. He growled in annoyance.

"Consequences are a part of life, Charon, and if you think I honestly _care,_ why would I ever say yes?" Her hand moved across his flesh, and he stiffened. She was smooth, her hand gliding unevenly across the torn muscle, moving to his side and coming to rest on his chest. She pulled herself into his back, and he breathed out in pleasure as her breasts came flush against his back.

"You are not particularly bright, Emily," he answered, and it felt good to be able to say that, even if it made her angry. He did not have to worry about being forced to withstand a beating anymore. That was a good feeling, too.

"Hey!" she protested, but there was no real anger behind the words. She ran her other hand from the middle of his back to his stomach, wrapping him into an embrace.

"You do not want this," he repeated, facing forward, his jacket hanging from one hand as she pushed her chest into his back.

"Yes I do," she said, and he felt himself nearly exploding at the sound of the words. He shuddered―one of her hands had dipped down to his pants and she fondled him through the leather. It was a dull sensation, but he could still feel it. "And you _promised_ you would make it okay."

"Make what―" he said, and she squeezed. He gasped, bending forward. She released him in surprise, and he moved away from her but her arms stopped his movement.

"You damn near killed me," she said, angrily. "Drunk Charon choked me into near-unconsciousness. And you―" She pressed her lips together. "Well, you said you wanted to make it okay."

He could not remember that. A more rational part of his mind took over. Charon was not immune from sexual advances, under the contract; Azhrukhal had occasionally offered male or female patrons a free hit of jet to proposition Charon, for his own amusement. Every attempt was inevitably ended with violence, the patron would get nowhere with their words or actions. The more desperate of the junkies sometimes touched him through his armor, like she was doing. It was an unpleasant-enough analogue, he was able to stem his arousal from eating away at his resolve.

"I fail to see how having sex with you would make anything okay," he snarled.

Emily growled, and her hands twisted into his flesh but it was not painful. "Fuck _you!"_ she yelled, and removed her hands, shoving him forward.

That made him angry . He swung around, his hand up, ready to hit her across the face. He stopped himself from striking her―another thing he did not want to be a part of―at the sight of her scared face. She knew he might hit her and she still aggravated him, still pushed him into trying.

Charon lowered his hand, staring down at her. "Please do not do that," he said, instead.

"O- _kay,"_ she said, in that petulant way that had annoyed him before. It annoyed him further, now.

"Do you expect me to cave to your whims? _You_ broke the contract!" he yelled, his temper rising.

"No, I expect you to listen to me as a friend!" she shrilled.

"We are not _friends!"_

She pinched her mouth. "You hurt my feelings," she said. "I came back for you, like I said I would."

"You said you _might,"_ he seethed. "And you left me, after I explained―"

"Of all the things I've said in the past, how many have you believed?!" She curled her fingers up into fists. "I'm a goddamn _liar,_ Charon!"

He stared at her for a moment. "Then I suppose you expect me not to believe what you implied I did, while drunk."

"Do you not _see_ what you did?!" She reached out, grabbed his hand, and laid it onto the hand print on her stomach. "If that isn't _proof―"_

"It does not mean I have done anything beyond beat you," he said, jerking his hand away. "And I highly doubt that I would have done anything like what you―" What, _expect?_ Did she expect him to have sex with her?

"I guess I'll just have to go across the way and hope _Jericho_ is at home, then," she snapped, bending down and grabbing up her dress.

He grabbed her by the throat when she rose, and pushed her backward into the wall over the bed. The metal wall shuddered under the force. "If you think going to that dirty bastard is going to make me sympathetic," he hissed, "then you are sorely mistaken, Emily."

 _"Ch―"_ She gasped and choked for air. He dropped her, onto the bed.

"Stop acting like an annoying bitch," he told her. A loud knock at the door interrupted his next statement, probably a good thing―and he heard Jericho yelling through the metal, asking if Emily was okay. Sheriff Simms was down there yelling alongside him and the doorknob was rattling.

Charon snarled at her one last time, and pulled on his jacket. He walked downstairs to the door, picked up his foot, and booted the spot where the door knob would have been.

The door exploded outward and Jericho yelped in surprise. Charon smiled grimly. It was a good feeling, to do as he pleased. He stared at the men as the door hung on a hinge, swinging back until it caught on the railing. Jericho's hand stopped it from rebounding.

"What the _fuck's_ going on?" Jericho yelled, staring down Charon.

"The knob came off the door," Charon said, in his best monotone.

"Where is Emily?" Simms asked him as Jericho tried to push past him, into the shack. Charon put a hand out and stopped the ex-raider.

 _"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE, JERICHO!"_ she screeched, from the stairs. She had put on her leather pants and was shimmying into her shirt, and her leather jacket fell from her mouth as she yelled at the old man.

Jericho stopped for a moment, then turned a glare onto Charon. He knew exactly what the look meant. It meant trouble, which was what Charon had told Emily, before, which meant violence. He glared right back at the man. _Bring it,_ he thought. _I am ready for a test._

"Miss, you alright in here?" Simms asked, glancing between the men. "I heard there was some screaming, and a few thuds loud enough to shake the whole walk."

"This fucking _moron_ broke my door," she growled, jerking a thumb at Charon. "I've been trying to open the damn thing all afternoon. He wasn't being exactly _helpful_ about it, either." She crossed her arms and stared the black man down. Charon growled a little; he did not appreciate being made into an idiot in front of anyone, and now he could express his distaste.

"Alright," Simms said. "Just checking in on you. Holler if you need anything, miss." He turned and ambled away down the walk, around the corner. _Smart man,_ Charon thought, _getting the hell out of Dodge until the real shit starts._

Emily turned to Jericho. _"Get the fuck out,"_ she hissed at him, her face red. The marks on her throat stuck out like a sore thumb. Jericho's eyes dropped to her neck. Charon cracked his knuckles on one hand by making a fist.

"You sure about that," Jericho said, flicking watery red-rimmed eyes to the girl's face. "You look like you need some fuckin' _help."_

"What, help like the _last_ time you were in my goddamn house?!" She strode forward, pushing Charon's arm down and got up into the man's face. "Coming in here, playing all nice-like, and fucking throwing me down like you did?!"

Jericho looked up and away as Emily was suddenly pulled backward. His eyes met Charon's fist, knocking him back and out, away from the shack. He fell in a lump of dirty old man onto the walk.

Charon growled and pulled the door shut again.


	10. In Which Emily Is Bolstered

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Emily fixed the door without a word, riveted in a new hinge and removed the door knob, and jogged off to buy a new one from Moira. That woman seemed to have every little thing you could ever need. Charon sat on the couch and did not move, staring at the door. It was unable to be locked until Emily came back. He had a good long think about what had happened.

He doubted very much that he had sexually assaulted her. It was not that he would not have―he was entirely capable of it, he was surely a man. And he had never been drunk before. But it was not in his nature to consider women as something pleasurable. In his experience every woman was just as nasty, if not nastier, as every man. Emily was no exception, and having disappeared for three or so weeks... Who knew what she had gone through in Raven Rock, and who knew what sort of attitude she might bring back. She had not been entirely lucid when she came into the Ninth Circle to find him.

He didn't know what to think about the stress singing. She had been muttering under her breath for the past half hour, and he recognized the tune as "Pretty Boy Floyd". He was not sure where he had heard it, or how he knew of it, but he remembered it.

 _"And as through your life you travel, yes, as through your life you roam, you won't never see an outlaw, drive a family from their home."_

He found it a little ironic that Emily had admitted to being a liar but acted a saint. Much like the eponymous hero of "Pretty Boy Floyd", she was a terrible person in some ways. But she did good things to battle against that reputation. She was certainly praised by Three Dog, who had never said a bad word against the girl. Even... when she talked Tenpenny into letting the ghouls in, and they ended up killing all the normal people at the tower. Charon was as disgusted by that as Emily was, but Three Dog had not said a word against her. Only against the ghoul Roy Phillips for disposing of the others.

He should have shot _that_ bastard too, right between the eyes. He should have shot a lot of people now that he thought about it. Starting with her father, who had left her in that fucking Vault to be traumatized, and certainly not ending with someone he would like very much to shoot― _Jericho._

The aged old fuck was staring at him through the hole where the knob had been, his eyes on the ghoul's. Charon did not know what game the old man thought he was playing but he did enjoy the bruise that was spreading across the man's face. It improved his appearance almost as much as a bullet through the head would.

Emily did not return immediately, and Charon kept his eyes on the ex-raider until the man moved. He stood up from his spot, sitting against the wall of the shack opposite Emily's, and began to walk toward the ramp leading up to the shacks. Charon drew himself up from the couch and moved to the door. He had a good idea of what the man was up to, and his assumption was correct; Jericho was moving to intercept Emily as she returned from the batty redhead's store.

Charon strode across the ramp and hit Jericho across the top of his head, his fist skidding across the bald skin, knocking the man over the railing. He came to rest on the dirt, sliding down under the walk.

"What the fuck, Charon," Emily muttered. She brushed past him, going to install the new door knob.

He watched her from the outside of the door, occasionally glancing around, keeping an eye out. He had done that for too long to stop now.

Why did he even stick around? He was unsure. Where to go beyond Underworld, which was something he did not want to do now that he was free of the contract; what to do with himself, beyond bouncing at the Ninth Circle. He may as well stick around the girl for as long as she would have him. She did not seem to care if he was around, even though she had implied his behavior was reprehensible. She... was strange, but he was already aware of that.

And the talk that they were having in the bedroom was not finished. He intended to finish it. It felt important.

Beside that, he did not remember much about the wastes other than what Emily had dragged him through. They would both probably get killed in the onslaught against the Enclave, whenever she decided to leave. If he were to leave, or if he were to remain in her presence, he was going to get killed. He frowned. Now that he was free of his contract, he did not wish so much for death.

Emily shut the door and locked it from the inside, rattled the knob, and unlocked it. She moved to the other side and did the same thing, without a word or a glance at him. Charon could hear the ex-raider finally come to his senses from below the railing, swearing up a storm. He smiled in satisfaction. Next time, he would hit him so hard he might not wake up.

Emily opened the door, moving back inside, then slammed it behind her. Charon shot a final look around before following. Emily looked around the corner of the kitchen and snarled at him.

"Why the fuck are you even _here,"_ she said. "And why the _fuck_ are you still trying to _protect me_ from that old bastard?!" She ducked back to the fridge, seemingly ignoring him.

He snarled right back. "Our conversation was not finished."

"Is that _right?_ You gonna beat me up again?" She laughed, meanly. "Knock yourself out, _asshole._ I'm right here!"

Charon clenched his hands into fists. "I do not intend to attack you," he growled. "You are the most annoying little bitch I have ever had the pleasure to meet."

"Wow, a compliment, Charon-style," she mocked. "That one's even better than the time you said I looked 'like a girl'."

He exploded in frustration, and stomped over the metal floor to her, finding her cowering in the corner. "What is wrong with you?" he bellowed. "You are being _deliberately_ stupid!"

She pressed herself into the corner beside the fridge, but slid up the wall into a standing position. "What's wrong with you?" she burst out. "I fucking _helped_ you! And you went all weird on me, twice!"

Charon grabbed her by the front of her shirt. "I cannot lay claim to something I do not recall!"

"Well, _fine,_ what- _ever,"_ she said, stupidly. "You didn't pull my hair half out of my head, act like you were trying to _fuck_ me, and press me against the bookshelf, assaulting me!" Her hand flew out, pointing at the bookshelf. Charon moved backward, glanced at it. Everything on the top had been flung all over the room.

"Oh, and you sure as hell didn't throw me over your fucking shoulder, haul me upstairs, and _beg_ me to tell you how to make it okay!" She grabbed his wrist, staring him in the eyes. Her face contorted. "I don't even know why I gave in―" she growled. "I'm not some fucking _whore,_ Charon! I'm just―really, _really,_ fucking lonely!"

He dropped her from his hand and backed away, staring down at her with the same blank expression he was so good at. She stood up, brushed off her knees, and put her hands on her hips.

"And I tell you _what―"_ She sniffled, and pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "I only bought you from that _puke_ because I felt bad, because I was terrified of ghouls―because I figured I would be able to help myself get over that―" She still had fear in her eyes. She acted like it was in the past, using the wrong words.

Or, once again, it was only for _him,_ like he had thought when she first bought his contract.

"You want to go back to not speaking?" he asked her. "Using your stupid hands to tell me what to do?"

"Why are you even still here?!" she bawled, tears welling up in her eyes. "Why haven't you just gone _away,_ like you were going to, before―" She sniffled and wiped her face. "Why the fuck are you still around _me?!"_

Charon looked upward at the ceiling. There was nothing that should keep him here, that was true. Nothing... beyond Emily. Despite what he had said in the bedroom, he had relatively few personal relationships. This was the _only_ one he could think up that was remotely enjoyable. ...If irritating. Emily was like a healing wound. Felt good, but itched like crazy.

And he had no idea what else to do. He was not prepared to venture into the wastes without a plan. The drama that had erupted in the last few hours had not given him much time to come up with one. The world was scared of him, but he was scared of it, too.

"Everyone else in the world is scared of me," he muttered.

"I am, _too!"_ she shrilled. "And after― _that―"_ she sobbed, and covered her face. _"Get the hell out of my house!"_

"I will not," he said, firmly. "You abandoned me. That is your behavior. I will not abandon you."

"I'm a grown adult, now, Charon," she muffled, through her hands. "You _can't_ abandon me. It's not possible." She made a soft keening noise. "Just go _away!"_

His hands moved up and he debated on trying to touch her. He... had a hard time remembering to be gentle, sometimes, when Ahzrukhal had wanted him to not kill a patron. If―he looked to the side, saw the teddy bears that Emily collected scattered across the floor and under the couch―if he had tried to be gentle with her, it had probably ended the same way. The hand print, the bruise on her wrist... He had choked her, obviously.

Charon did not like the idea that he was not able to control himself. That had only happened once, when he murdered―but she was still alive.

"You are not a grown adult," he rasped. "You are a fucking child."

"Gee, _thanks,"_ she mocked, still pushing him. "That means a hell of a lot coming from a rapist."

Charon grabbed her with one hand, again, and shook her back and forth for a moment, then stopped himself. "Do not call me that!" he snapped. She threw her head back, closing her eyes.

"What- _ever,"_ she said, shakily. "Go on then, get the fuck out or _kill me._ Your choice."

"Why do you act like you do not care?!" he asked her, shaking her again.

"Because I _don't!"_ she shrieked. "I _don't_ care! My life was fucking _over,_ the minute I left that Vault!" She opened her blue eyes and stared at him. She was in a lot of pain. He had seen that look before, on ghouls who were about to die. "My life was ended when my father decided to _dump_ me in that meat grinder!"

Charon released her, slowly. "Then it is even more important that I do not abandon you," he rasped.

 _"W-What?"_ she sputtered.

"You are going to get yourself killed for no good reason," he said. "While you think that you should not care, the wasteland needs you more than you need yourself."

"Ugh," she groaned, and rolled her eyes at him. She was still crying, a little. Charon's hand twitched.

"The radio says your name every fifteen minutes, Emily," he rasped.

"Only because my stupid dad decided to run off and _force_ me to chase after him!" she growled, and she was tense, her arms quivering. "And because if I hadn't―helped out―I would have died, _anyway!"_

"And you do not feel that it is worthwhile, to help others?"

She scoffed and kicked a rogue teddy that had landed under the sink. "No. There is _nothing_ worthwhile in helping all these―"

"Then why the hell did you bother with me?!" he asked her, angrily. She was quiet. He snorted at her. "You're a hypocritical bitch," he growled.

"Get the fuck out," she said, sullenly. "I don't need a guilt trip on top of everything else, today."

He lost his temper with her and he was not proud of it, but it happened. Charon grabbed her by her collar and dragged her back up the stairs, where she lost her footing and started crying, sobbing into her hands. He pulled her roughly into the bedroom and tossed her onto the bed.

"You want to make it okay, _now?"_ he snapped, looking down at her with a glare.


	11. In Which Charon Keeps Appearances

Note: A little more Jericho, in your life.

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Emily jumped right out of her skin, Charon saying such a ridiculous thing. Like he had said―how would having sex with her make _anything_ better?! She curled up into a ball and pushed herself into the corner of the room, and tried her damnedest not to lose it like a fucking child.

He was right, though. As he stood there, staring at her with a glare that burned into her skin, she knew he was right. She was a child, _a stupid child,_ and she'd never had a fucking chance in the wasteland. Not after her stupid fight with him―not after her leaving him behind―or her father dying to protect what he deemed important―more important than _her―_ her, his _only_ fucking child of a _dead mother,_ a child who had no idea what was going to happen―abandoning her to the Vault, and then even to the wastes, when he _died―_

She sobbed.

Charon sat on the bed beside her, and she couldn't even flinch because she was in so much pain. A rough hand came out and touched her head, heavy and unyielding. She let the tears fall, ignored him.

"Life is tough," he said, after a few minutes. "I know."

"Fuck _you,"_ she whispered. "You got a leg up on me because you're a damn ghoul."

Charon laughed. Again the sound was alien, and it startled her right out of her crying. "I was punished," he said, seriously. "It was my fault. I killed when I ought not to have."

"I've killed," she muttered, balling up her fists into her face.

"You have killed that which deserves to die," he said. "People and ghouls who were stains on the fucking earth the minute they were born."

"Maybe," she said, still whispering.

"You still care." He moved his hand back and forth, mussing her hair. "It would not hurt if you did not."

She cried a little more. She grabbed the dress she'd wadded up and thrown to the corner, and wiped her face with it. "Do you?" she asked.

"No," he said, firmly. "I did not."

She sniffled, and pushed herself up a little. "What does that mean."

"I had no reason to care while I was in that bastard's control," he answered. "So I did not."

"You're free of the contract, now," she mumbled.

"Yes."

"And you think I should care."

Charon's head turned and he stared down at her with a strange face. "You already do, Emily."

"I suppose," she answered, and moved herself up to lean against the wall. She stared at him through her hair. "It's been a weird day," she wavered.

"Very," he agreed.

"At least the door got fixed," she muttered. Her ears hurt from crying. She sighed and pushed her hair off her face. "Doesn't even out everything that's gone on."

"I apologize if I caused you pain," he said, his voice neutral.

"Yeah, okay," she breathed out.

"I am sorry... that what happened, did," he added.

She laughed a little, and sucked snot up into her nose. "Yeah, well. If you hadn't 'woken up' I would have probably had a worse time." She stared at the top of her boot.

"I doubt it," Charon said. She glanced up at him. His face was blank. "I am good at everything that I do."

Emily sputtered out a half-laugh, half-disgusted noise. "You _asshole!"_ she said. "You told me―"

"That you should not want it," he finished. "And I believe that to be accurate."

"The fuck, _you_ know what I want," she snapped, her temper rising again. "You aren't _me._ You're like, everything that I'm _not."_

"True." He looked across the room. "But it would not make it okay to have sex."

 _"Jesus,_ this is like the conversation we had, only now _you're me,"_ she groaned, staring at the ghoul's back. "Can I at least go get drunk, so we can talk properly?"

Charon shook his head. "Think it would be best you get rid of all the booze," he said. "For a while."

Emily scoffed. "And now you're telling me what to do? Fuck you, Charon." She pushed him with one hand, a little shove. Not a hard one. His head snapped around and she flinched.

"You are not particularly bright, Emily," he said, again.

She was quiet for a long time. The only thing she could think about was how she felt so out of place, in any place she went. No one wanted to talk to her, forever. And she suspected it was because she was dumb.

"I _know_ I'm dumb," she finally answered, playing with her hands, looking down. "I test badly," she tried to joke.

"I do not," he said, and stood. "Sleep. You will feel better in the morning."

"But―"

Charon looked down at her but he wasn't glaring, and he wasn't angry. He looked as neutral as he ever had. "I will be downstairs," he said. "If you need anything."

So Emily slept, in her leather armor. She was exhausted anyway.

* * *

Around three a.m. that night, Jericho was back at the door. Emily could hear him through the walls, yelling and swearing. She woke from a dead sleep, groggy as hell, and stumbled out of her bedroom, blinking through a haze of exhaustion.

Charon was sitting on the couch, ignoring the ex-raider. Emily wobbled down the stairs and glared at the back of the ghoul's head. He was doing absolutely nothing but stare into the air. "You gonna punch him again?" she asked, irritated.

"Ignore him," he said. "He will pass out, eventually."

"I was _sleeping,"_ she growled. "I'm angry, _now._ I'll deal with it. Stay put." She made her way to the door, and rubbed her eyes. "Alright, but if I start screaming or something, come get me. I don't trust him."

"I will," he said, staring up at the ceiling.

She jerked the door open and stepped out, shutting it behind her. Jericho was standing in front of the shack, an open bottle of whiskey in his hand, opening his mouth to yell again. The mouth turned into a dirty grin, when he saw it was her.

He had a bruise on his face between his eyes, and both were blackened. Dried blood crusted around the corners of his nose, and a lump on his head was a deep purple in the brightness of the moon. "What do you want, now?" she asked, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

"You look _real_ good, in the moonlight," he said. "Damn, girl. Even with those fucking fingerprints on you."

"Fuck _you,_ Jericho," she said, and turned to leave.

He reached around her back and grabbed her breasts, the whiskey bottle dropping to the walk. It landed and began to empty its contents as Jericho pulled her away from the door using the front of her jacket.

 _"Goddammit!"_ she swore. "What the _fuck_ is your problem?!" She pried his hands off of her.

"My problem?" He laughed in disbelief. _"You_ got more problems than I _ever_ had."

She rolled her eyes. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"The fucking zombie in there―" he pointed back at the door and she realized he'd put himself between her and the door at some point. _Shit._ "He's being doing ya, _huh?_ That's why you don't want old Jericho around?"

"What- _ever,_ man!" she groaned. "I'm _not_ sleeping with Charon!"

"Oh _yeah?"_ He pushed himself into her face, and she backed up. Again the angle changed, and now she was against the rail. She swore to herself. "Why the fuck I hear sex today, then?"

"You fucking _peeper!"_ she snarled, and slapped him. _"Fuck you,_ Jericho!"

"That an invitation?" he chuckled, drunkenly. His hand was on her hip. The other ran itself down her outer thigh, and back up the inside. "I could do you a _hell_ of lot more gentle that than rotting fuckwad," he said, and pressed his palm against her flesh.

"Get off of me," she said, slapping his hand away. "What I do in my fucking spare time is none of your business." _This land is your land, this land is my land... Fuck!_ She thought that shit had gone away for good this time.

"Aww, now, you _promised_ me another time," he muttered, his voice low. He was pushing her into the rail, getting a little too close for comfort.

"I believe I said 'Mebbe'," she snapped. "Back up!"

"Mebbe is still a _yes,_ half the time," he grinned, and grabbed up her wrists.

"You know if I scream, Charon will come out here and straight-up murder you," she said.

"Girl, if I make you _scream,_ you'll be screaming my _name,"_ he said, and then his mouth was on hers. She remembered how badly his breath stunk, his nicked and rotten teeth... and how good it had felt. She'd gone into that one... willingly.

 _"No,"_ she muffled. _"Mmmffiitt!"_

"C'mon," he breathed, moving his mouth along her cheek and onto her ear. "You're always off on adventures. Try _this_ one."

"Is there nothing you don't have a pick-up line for, you dirty old man?!" She pushed his head to the side. "Not right now!"

His hands moved back to her hips. "That's what you said, _last_ time. Why you gotta be a cock tease, girl?" He stared at her, his muddy eyes boring into hers.

"Fuck you, man, I'm _tired._ I got stuck in my stupid house with that―" she gestured at the door. "It took _hours_ to fix that door."

"Fine," he breathed, the sour smell of whiskey brushing itself onto her face. _"Fine._ Gimme a quickie. Blow me."

She burst into laughter. "You're _desperate,_ Jericho," she cackled. "Absolutely _not!"_

"Girl I don't care how you do, but I need _something_ to tide me over till you get your shit straight and come begging." He grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her forward, intent on jamming his mouth against hers again.

Emily screamed. She'd had enough. He wasn't taking the hint.

The door opened and Charon had Jericho by the back of his neck, his hand on his collar. He pulled the ex-raider over to the railing by Jericho's shack and leaned him out over it, with no expression on his face whatsoever.

"Do _not_ kill him," Emily said.

"This one deserves it," Charon said, pushing him out further. Jericho's hands were tight on the railing, his feet planted but useless. If he lifted one to kick out, he would be dangling over the air in the ghoul's grip.

"Jericho, do you understand what I was saying?" she asked him, quietly.

"I got ya," he grunted.

"And no more of this shit, unless I come to you?"

"Sure, girl, sure," he said, his face setting into a dull and stupid expression.

"Alright. Please let go, Charon..." She stared at him. What he would do now would define how he wanted the world to see him, and would possibly inform the whole of Megaton that he was no longer taking orders.

The ghoul pulled Jericho back over the rail and tossed Jericho to the walk, sending him sprawling to his stomach. Emily sighed. "C'mon," she said, and went back to the house.

Charon had decided to keep up appearances.


	12. In Which Charon is Dead

Note: This is where the story of the game breaks for the DLC. I have Broken Steel but I dislike it, so I am... moving away from canon storyline.

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Emily opened her eyes. Everything was a blur at first. When she managed to blink it away, there was Elder Lyons standing in the room and she was being spoken to.

Where was she? Where was Charon? She didn't remember what had happened. She remembered―nothing much, really, from the assault on the Enclave.

Elder Lyons explained the events of the past for her, painfully slowly. They had gone to the purifier, along with the robot Liberty Prime. Lyon's Pride held the door for her to get into the Rotunda. Sarah and she had gone into the room and found out it needed to be activated―or else.

And for some reason that Emily was not fully aware of, Charon had activated it. She was boggled by that―he'd not been particularly interested in selfless action, but he had done that? And not let her or Sarah take the option. Maybe he was still trying to keep her alive? She had no idea why.

She sat on the bed with her head in her hands, staring at Sarah. She was a good woman. She shouldn't be half-dead. It... was all her dad's fault. Leading everyone into this without providing the adequate security, without the backup that he should have had.

Oh, but it was _easy_ to blame the dead, wasn't it?

And now... Lyons hadn't said where Charon was. Emily was becoming concerned; she'd asked twice but both times Lyons told her the stuffy old man version of "I'll tell you later" which was not only alarming but _frustrating._ Had Charon just up and gone? He'd seemed reluctant to do so, before.

Emily was pretty sure that whatever damage she and Sarah had taken, Charon would have too. Wouldn't he? Even in the radiation of the chamber, the purifier had been about to explode―

Lyons said everything was fine, not to worry, to focus on recovering. Yeah, right. Emily was _made_ for worry.

She stumbled out of the room and wandered as far as her wobbling legs would carry her. Someone had scrounged up an old Brahmin-skin outfit for her to wear, and the fabric itched around her stomach and back. She sat on a bench beside a Brotherhood soldier and leaned against the wall, scratching her back on the cool plaster.

She stared at the wall opposite, at the Brotherhood symbol that was painted there. Two weeks, she'd been in a coma. That was a long time. She'd be lucky if there was no long-term damage, after sustaining such a massive dose of radiation.

She sighed and closed her eyes against her stomach, which was flipping around inside her like a half-dead radscorpion. She... should probably eat, but first she wanted to find out what had happened to the ghoul even if―even if he had only come with her for lack of a better thing to do. After that mess with Jericho and the―shit―that happened in the shack, he'd not said much to her. Which was fine by Emily, because she was still mad at him for being so fucked up and for fucking her up.

"This is why I can't have nice things!" She sighed to herself.

"I am sorry for your loss," the soldier said.

"What?" she asked, turning her head. "...Wait, you mean my dad?"

He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I thought you had been informed."

"Informed of _what?"_ she said, and sat forward, turning herself to to soldier. "Who _―_ "

"Your companion, the ghoul, was found dead inside the purifier," the soldier said, his tone emotionless.

Emily supposed she ought to feel a little more upset, but it was like someone had turned a switch inside her brain and just shut it all off. "I guess I already knew that," she muttered to herself.

"I don't know where his body was removed to," the soldier said. "There was a lot of violence when the purifier was activated. Sarah Lyons was hit across the head by a beam."

"Hmmm," she answered. Her stomach protested that it was hungry, but kept doing loops.

"You are... Emily?" the soldier asked.

"Yeah," she said.

"I am Knight Captain Gallows," he said, and extended a hand. "I am glad to have finally met the infamous Lone Wanderer. May your kills ever be in your favor."

She laughed a little, an exhausted laugh that was weak at best. "Thank you," she said, taking the hand. "I appreciate that."

He stood and walked away without a word. _What a strange person,_ she thought.

Emily eventually found her way to a cafeteria.

* * *

She stayed at the Citadel for a while. She couldn't find her house key. She'd collected so many keys throughout the wastes, the ring itself weighed two pounds. And now she couldn't find the damn thing, but she didn't really feel like going home anyway. With her luck Jericho would still be out there in front of her house, mooning over her.

Maybe she ought to just give in to the old bastard, and make it so bad he wouldn't want her anymore. ...Yeah, _right,_ that fucker was desperate enough to pick a fight with Charon, so... She sighed.

Knight Captain Dusk was with her in the bailey, because Lyons had offered her an escort. Since Emily was still very weak, and since she'd fallen down the stairs in A Ring earlier that day, Dusk was following her around. Really, it was Emily following the soldier. The woman provided little actual company, spending most of her time shooting at targets across the yard.

"I hear Gallows spoke to you," Dusk said, off-hand.

"Um, yeah," Emily said. She was looking at her Pip-Boy, trying to figure out where her key ring might have fallen from her pack. It was looking to be a moot point. "Yeah, we spoke."

"I don't trust him." Dusk shifted herself to face Emily. "I know I should take faith... but he disappears into the wastes for days at a time. I can't trust a soldier like that."

Emily shrugged. "I never met him before yesterday." She'd never met Dusk before, either.

"And he actually spoke to you?" She swore. "Must be _special._ I've never seen the man offer up very much, even to the Pride." She snorted. "Hell, Glade's got a betting pool going on his first name. No one knows it. He won't say."

"I'm nothing special," Emily mumbled. "I'm just a kid in the wastes."

Dusk pulled the rifle up to her face again. "Well."

It was like that for a few hours while Emily sat in the bailey, watching Dusk take practice, not entirely sure why she couldn't put a few coherent thoughts together. Must be the coma still, she thought.

She sort of missed Charon, now. But he was dead. It would be stupid to want him around, anyway. Hadn't he―

She pushed the thought away. It _was_ easy to blame the dead. She wanted the blame gone. Made her tired.

"Dusk, I'm going inside. Getting sleepy."

"Alright, Wanderer," the Knight Captain said. "Take it easy."

* * *

Emily saw Knight Captain Gallows again, after a few days. She was getting around easier, working her legs back into practice. She sure as hell wasn't going out into the wastes if she couldn't even navigate a stairwell.

Since he didn't have any identifying marks on his armor she thought he was one of the other thirty or so soldiers wandering through the residential area. She'd been parked on a bench for a while, waiting on Dusk to return. Dusk hadn't been very friendly, and Emily's temper had... made it worse. If the woman didn't return it was no skin off _her_ nose.

"Emily," Gallows said.

"Wha," she started, drawn from her fugue to the present. "Oh."

"You don't seem to be very well."

"..." She opened and closed her mouth. Didn't know what to say.

Gallows didn't seem to know, either. Kind of just stood there. It reminded her of Charon when he was aggravated and she felt... well, she wasn't sure. It was an uneasy feeling.

Why the fuck did she even _miss_ that bastard?

"I am going out to kill mutants later," Gallows was saying. "Perhaps you would like to come?"

Emily looked in surprise. "Uh." She pushed herself up from the bench and rubbed her lower back. "What?"

"The only way you will get back into the swing of thing is to practice," he replied.

"That's a... _point."_ Her head was still bothering her a bit.

"This is a one time offer, Wanderer."

"Yeah," she coughed. "Yeah, okay. Who put you up to it?"

Gallows tilted his head toward her. "Smart."

Emily shrugged. "I've been watched like a hawk since I woke up. Lyons seems to have some sort of attachment to me. And Sarah hasn't woken up..." She frowned. That was a damn shame, too. Sarah should not still be in a coma.

"I report to Sarah alone," Gallow said. "Without her to report to, I have nothing better to do with my time."

Emily felt a little irritated at that. "What, nothing better but to spend time with me? What- _ever._ " She huffed and crossed her arms.

"My intention is to help." He did not give her any clue as to his emotions, just spoke with a cool voice. "You don't want to go? Don't go." Gallows turned and began to walk away.

"Alright!" she said. _"Alright._ I'll go with."

He nodded but did not stop walking away. "Meet me in the bailey at midnight."

* * *

She was groggy again later. Gallows led her into the downtown D.C. ruins, along the path that she'd taken to get to the purifier when they had battled the Enclave. He didn't volunteer any more camaraderie, just used hand motions to stop and start their passage and pointed out mutants for them to shoot.

It was peaceful, almost. Except for the wanton killing of Super Mutants they didn't speak, they didn't stop, and they weren't disagreeing. They were just killing things and walking around.

Hell, if that was Gallows' idea of a good time she might ask to come out more often. She was actually enjoying herself, in the dark of the night, exploring the ruins and seeking out mutants.

He returned her to the Citadel after the first rays of light began to crawl over the horizon. She was content with her performance. Her head cleared, the grogginess gone. Knight Captain Dusk didn't have anything good to say―but the words didn't bother her anymore. She felt like every jagged line had been smoothed out, all the pain of the last few weeks made into something she could tap like a faucet. Like she could turn it on and off whenever she wanted.

She went out into the ruins a few more times before she decided to go elsewhere. Lyons had things he wanted her to do for him, but she was done with the Brotherhood for a while―except for Gallows' midnight forays. He'd invited her with unspoken words to come back any time she wanted.

She felt like she'd made a friend in the soldier. Never saw his face, though. He didn't talk much. He was... neutral. Wouldn't get angry with her if she talked too much, though his own reticence kept her from babbling too much. He didn't even respond when she tried to joke, just ignored it and continued killing.

 _Friends are people who accept you for who you are,_ she thought. Back in the Vault, that had been Amata with her insane patience for Emily's relentless flirting and bad reputation. The Overseer hadn't liked it―but Emily hadn't cared much for _that_ old ass. Gallows was like Amata, patient and calm. Emily liked that.

The Lone Wanderer stepped into the wasteland again, but this time she felt more unafraid than she had since her first view of the ruined world.

And this time, she felt like she didn't need to define herself with desperate behavior.


	13. In Which Emily Smiles

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

"Irving."

"What?" The Wanderer―Emily―was reloading her sniper rifle, which badly needed repair. Gallows hadn't mentioned it, yet; it was her prerogative to keep her weapon in top condition. She wasn't his subordinate either, but... a companion.

"My name," he said.

"Oh." She moved the bolt of the rifle back and forth a few times, her face intense. "Is that... wait. Didn't Glade have some bet―"

"Whatever," Gallows said. "They've been bothering me about that for ages."

She stared at him, in the gloom of the night, her face shadowed by the building they were standing near. The D.C. ruins were always full of mutants. Where the hell they all came from, Gallows couldn't say. He didn't care, either, as long as he could continue to go out and kill them. Anything to get him out of the Citadel, away from all the stupid.

"Alright," she said, and looked down the road through her scope. "Why don't you tell them, then?"

"It's none of their business." Gallows followed her line of sight and saw what she was aiming at. His rifle came up and as they were accustomed, he took the first shot. Emily lined up her rifle and shot at the mutant as it fell. It was better practice than shooting stationary targets in the bailey, like Dusk did.

"So how come it's my business," she asked, quietly.

"You haven't been bugging me day in and day out about it for months," he answered.

She smiled. Gallows would give anything to see that smile, which was one of the reasons he'd told her his name. She was good at being quiet. She was very good at not irritating him, though in the beginning it had taken her a few trips to get the hang of stealth missions. Now, she rarely spoke. She would only smile.

He hated to admit it to himself, but her smile made him feel like all the anger he'd been holding onto was gone. For the brief moment that her lips curved up, he was no longer the silent and mysterious soldier with sneaky tactics but a normal man with desires just like any other. He wasn't furious at the world for doing him so badly. He was just Irving, again.

The two moved through the building and across a walkway, staring down into the ruins illuminated by the half-moon. It had been almost three months since the purifier was activated. Emily had not given into Lyon's request for help; she told Gallows the only reason she had to be in D.C. was to kill things. That was something he agreed with. So he kept taking her with him. It wasn't a problem so long as she kept smiling at him.

 _"Ouch!"_ she hissed, and picked up her foot in the walkway, looking at the bottom of her boot. She picked at something on the heel, a pained look on her face.

Gallows kept eyes on the ruins. After a moment she sighed and adjusted her rifle onto her back, and sat down. "I stepped on a nail," she said, hushed. _"Hurts."_ She pulled off her boot and made a loud noise.

His head snapped around, staring at her. She knew better than to make noise like that. Why―blood was gushing out of her foot, and she quickly drew out a stimpak, injecting herself. With a tiny grunt of effort, she pulled a bloodied four inch nail from the sole of her boot.

"Damn," Emily whispered, turning it in the moonlight.

He wished she would get herself something better than the leather armor she seemed to like. She took better care of it than her rifle, that was for sure. Gallows watched the distance while she put herself back to rights.

The moon set over the ruins. Gallows wanted to ask her something, before they went back to the Citadel, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything. Which was ridiculous, being scared of saying words. He didn't talk because he didn't need to. It was like he'd been silent for so long he couldn't make the words work, anymore.

Emily slung her rifle over her back again and walked with him, out of the ruins and across the bridge. The raiders that sometimes took residence in the lee of the bridge were gone at the moment. Gallows fell behind, watched her leading.

She was tough, but not tough like Sarah and the other Pride members. Her toughness was a skin-deep kind. Under it, she was about as soft as a mattress. Back when her father died, she'd been a wreck. And that ghoul with her had been about as helpful as a lead weight around her neck. Now that he was gone, Gallows had been able to express his curiosity in the only way he knew how; going out to the ruins and shooting mutants, spending time around her without speaking.

Dusk might think he was too sneaky for the Pride, but he worked best behind the lines―Sarah knew that. But Sarah wasn't around to keep the Pride in check. And the Pride felt the strain. Gallows spent as much time as possible away from them, if only to safeguard his sanity.

"Emily," he said, finally mustering the courage.

"Hmm?" she turned and her hair bounced around her head. His breath caught in his throat. For a moment, he couldn't do anything but stare at her like an idiot.

She brought her rifle up and looked around. "Enemy?" she asked, quietly.

"No," he said, when his throat stopped being stupid. "Uh―"

She looked at him over her shoulder, and smiled. Dammit, why was he feeling so powerless? Made him angry. He didn't want to be angry with Emily. He... really liked her, wanted to... _go further._

"Uh," he said again, and his chest tightened.

"You okay?" she asked. "What's up?"

"I..." He cleared his throat. "I've come to enjoy your company," he managed.

"Thanks," she said, smiling wider. "I like killing mutants with you, too."

Gallows cleared his throat again and kept his eye on her face. Dammit, he was better than this. _Get yourself together, man._ "I'd like to have a meal with you," he said.

If that wasn't the lamest way of saying it, he didn't know what. She looked surprised, though. Maybe he'd not said it right. "What, you―" she lifted her eyebrows. "You want to eat something, together?"

"Yes," he said, his voice deepening. His throat was closing up again.

"Okay," she said. "In the Citadel?"

He didn't know where else he might obtain food―didn't trust the locals. A pang of anger flooded into him at the thought. Not after that incident when he'd first arrived in the Capital Wasteland. _Fucking savages._

"Yes," he said, again, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"Alright," she replied.

The two walked silently back to the Citadel. Gallows felt his chest release the tightness; he'd managed to finally make a conversation, and it was going... well, in a way. He didn't expect her to infer any romantic intent from the invitation. She'd sounded genuinely surprised, but that might simply be because she had never eaten with him before.

Upon their arrival in the Lyon's Den, she sat down at the table in the cafeteria and made herself at home. She pulled off her boot, looking at her foot where the nail had gone through. She was looking through the bottom of the boot through a small hole when he brought over a couple of bottles of water and a box of crisps. "Not _entirely_ ruined, at least," she muttered, and pulled her boot back on. She put her hand on the box and looked up at him. "For me?"

"Yes," he answered, and took the seat beside her. Just being around Emily made him feel ten times better. She'd never asked for or wanted for anything from him; she was capable of providing for herself, but he had an irrational want to provide for her. He knew it was not a good idea to get involved. But he _wanted_ to.

He began to unlatch his helmet. He'd never removed it in her presence, before. Never needed to. His stomach growled lightly as he undid the metal latches and his chest fluttered. _Stop being an idiot,_ he told himself.

Emily uncapped a bottle of water and munched away on the crisps, completely oblivious to him. _This must be what hell feels like,_ he thought. _Sitting next to someone who makes your heart beat faster, but she doesn't even notice._

They ate in silence. She said nothing about him removing his helmet. As soon as he was done, he lifted the power helmet to replace it, but she said something that made him pause.

"Do you never remove it?" she asked, without looking at him. "Like, do you sleep in it?"

He cleared his throat and lowered his arms. "Not much reason to take it off," he answered.

"Huh," she said. "Shame."

He hesitated. "...Why?"

Emily turned to stare at him, her face expressing curiosity, a smile tugging at her cheek. "You look nice," she said. "You gotta cover that up, it's a shame."

Gallows dropped his helmet in surprise and felt his face flush with blood. Damn, she got him good. He fumbled to pick up the equipment from the floor. When he rose, she was tossing the empty water bottle and the box from the crisps. She turned to look at him. "I'm gonna head out, Irving," she said. "I'll be back in a few days."

"I'll wait for your return," he said.

Another lame remark. He shook his head at himself. At least Dusk hadn't seen his embarrassment. He'd never live that down.

* * *

Somehow, without his knowledge, his first name made rounds. The very idea that Emily could have gone and told someone infuriated him. He'd thought better of her than that. He'd told her because he wanted her to know, not the rest of the Pride.

Glade mentioned it, one day, in such a casual manner that it was almost like he'd never said anything. Gallows had turned his head to look at the Paladin and if they'd seen his face they would have fled, he was so angry. After a few good-natured jabs at him and some stuck-up ribbing from Dusk, the matter was dropped.

No one mentioned the betting pool. Gallows didn't know who had claimed the prize, but he didn't care unless it was Emily. If it had been Emily, he―he would just un-invite her from his nightly missions. It felt like a betrayal.

She came back to the Citadel after a week. She was standing in the bailey when Gallows went to leave, looking up at the sniper nests atop the Citadel. He didn't bother with motioning to her, he just left.

She trailed behind. Gallows was angry and he didn't want to be, but the idea that she'd ratted out his name to the others was too awful for him not to be. He stopped before he crossed the bridge and turned to face her.

Emily was smiling at him, a faint smile, and she had blood across her forehead. Her hair was messy and her eyes bloodshot―who knew why―and she had a new tear in her armor that she'd not attended to. She looked about as beat as one could get, without being actually wounded.

"Did you win the bet?" he asked her, angrily.

The smile disappeared and she frowned. "What bet?"

"Glade's betting pool. Did you win it?" He stepped forward, toward her. She didn't move.

"I don't know what you mean," she said, biting her lip. "Did―did someone say―?"

"No," he said. "No, but the Pride found out my first name. I didn't tell anyone but _you."_

Emily's eyes widened. "Well, it wasn't me!" she said. "Maybe someone heard me call you Irving in the Den."

"No one was there," he growled. "No one but us."

"Paladin Glade walked by me on the way out," she offered. "I didn't tell. You know I don't even _talk_ to anyone in the Citadel. Except for you."

Gallows sighed, breathing out through his nose. "I don't know if I can trust you," he said.

"Well, that's fine." She pushed the strap of her rifle up further. "Just _fine._ I'll be going then. Tell Lyons I'm not coming back." She turned abruptly and started to walk away.

 _Dammit, you idiot, tell her to stop!_ Gallows' chest tightened and squeezed his heart into his stomach. He felt terrible for accusing her. But really, _who else―_

He should have asked Glade where he found out, but he'd been too angry to trust his words.

He didn't really want her to go, either.

"Emily―!" he called out. _"Wait!"_


	14. In Which Emily Admits Her Flaws

Note: Removed superfluous dialogue, repaired the flow of words. Identified a problem or two, fixed it.

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

Gallows took three steps and he'd caught up with her, reaching out for her. "I do not mean to accuse you," he said. "I... I'm just angry."

"It sure as _hell_ sounds like it!" She turned and shook his hand off of her shoulder. "Accusing me!"

"I apologize," he said. "I... don't want you to think ill of me."

"I _don't,_ Irving," she said. "But I didn't go around telling people your name, and I don't like being singled out for something I didn't do! I thought we were _friends."_

The words both hurt and healed. He hurt because he wasn't content to only be a friend. But it was good to know she considered him a friend. It was a start. He sighed. "Let's go kill mutants."

She crossed her arms and stared at him. "Is that really what you want to do?"

He paused. "Yes?" he guessed. "Unless you don't want..."

"Make up your mind, Irving." She huffed at him. "If you want to go kill mutants, that's just fine. I have other things to do."

 _Damn._ He didn't know what to say. She was angry and he had no idea how to fix it. He'd already apologized... He didn't reply. His throat was closed up, anyway.

"Yeah," she said. "Alright." She dropped her arms. "There's something you're aiming for, and I don't know if it's a―a relationship or something, but you need to _tell me."_

Gallows didn't want to tell her when she was angry. It felt unfair. She was tactical, forcing his hand. He couldn't sneak his way out of this one.

"Yes," he breathed. "Yes, I would like that."

"It's not that hard to talk to me, is it?" she asked. Her eyes moved across his visor.

"Sometimes," he said. His heart pounded in his chest.

She looked around. "Let's go down to that hide-away under the bridge. Eventually one of those snipers up there is gonna notice us and you'll have even _more_ embarrassment."

Emily went to the railing on the left, then the right, and pointed at it. Gallows followed her as she led him into the raider's hideout. She grabbed a chair, turned it around, and sat down in it. She looked up at him, expectantly.

"I'm not very good with words," he warned her.

"That's fine." She waved her hand at him and at the ledge beside him. "C'mon, Irving, park it. Talk to me."

She was being... aggressive. It wasn't the Emily he had come to like. Gallows sat down and pulled his helmet off so he could see her. That felt like the right thing to do. He'd―never had much interest in women, before her. In the Brotherhood most women acted like men were the enemy, worthy of destruction. With Emily he didn't know exactly _what_ was right.

"I don't like being pushed," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But today has been a _very_ long day for me, and I was looking forward to some quiet time in the ruins with you."

"I am sorry to hear that," he answered. His heart had slowed to a decent pace, but was beating hard against his chest. "Again, I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"I didn't tell Glade or any of those guys your name. You should be so lucky they didn't pick on you for telling me, since I obviously called you Irving." She draped her arms over the back of the chair and leaned her chin onto them. "I had to ask Glade to stop spreading rumors about us. He might be a damn good Paladin, but he gossips like a _housewife_ in his down time." She rolled her eyes.

He was quiet for a moment. "...I would like to... go _further,_ in a relationship, with you," Gallows said. His courage bucked up with her admittance. She looked forward to their missions. She wanted to spend time with him. It made him feel good. He kept eye contact.

"What is more than shooting mutants together and awkward eating?" she asked. Her tone was severe but her eyes were twinkling in the dark.

"Uh―" he laughed at himself. _Dammit, man, you've never been such a wimp!_ "I'm... not sure, really."

Emily stood up and came to his side. "You are going very slow, and I appreciate that," she said, "but if you aren't sure, then how can we do this?" She laid a hand on his cheek.

She was touching him. He'd dreamed about that. It was something that always made him feel guilty when he woke. Dreaming about Emily touching him, especially the dreams that were more intense. His cheek was on fire from her touch. _Stop remembering dreams, the reality is right here, man._

"Emily―I―" he started, but she was leaning forward and she was kissing him now. Her lips were soft. He didn't know how to kiss her back. It was awkward, and terrible.

"Irving," she said, when she drew away, "I think that you are a very nice man."

 _No._ No, she was about to say something terrible―he set his face and willed himself to remain as still as possible. He knew how to do that, he was the best at scouting and recon. That was why Sarah had picked him for the Pride.

"I don't know if you should want to get involved with me, though." She was staring him right in the eyes, her dark blue ones on his brown ones. "I'm not a very good person, sometimes. I do stupid things. A _lot_ of stupid things."

He finally breathed out―he hadn't realized he was holding his breath. "Are you implying it would be stupid to try?"

"It would, I think." She gestured at the wasteland, outside of the hideout, staring out at it. "There's no guarantee that we'll survive, out there. Hell, I can't even go home, right now."

"...Why can't you go home?" he asked. He wasn't ignoring the other topics, but that stuck out for some reason.

"I lost the key to my house. Lost _all_ my keys." She sighed, in frustration. "I do stupid shit like that all the time."

Gallows wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Survival isn't something we at the Brotherhood worry about," he said, switching the topic. "You get shot, you die. You get stabbed, you die. You get strangled, you die. The trick is not to let it get to that point. We don't."

She chuckled. "I've had _all_ those things happen to me," she murmured. "Haven't died yet."

That broke his heart. Emily should not have to experience that. He would make sure she didn't―if she let him―but she seemed reluctant to engage in a relationship. "I... could protect you, if you would let me," he said.

She stared at him. "I don't need protection, Irving."

"I am not saying you do." He forced his face to stop the embarrassed expression it was about to make. "I'm saying that I wouldn't mind doing so."

She smiled. His heart leapt for joy and he returned the smile. "You're too nice for me," she said, still smiling. "I'm a horrible person. I'd chew up you and spit you out."

"I wish you would stop deprecating yourself," Gallows said. "It's hurtful."

"Yeah, but that's what the wastes do to you." She sighed. "You know, I first came out with you because I thought I might be able to find my keys out there in the ruins? But I kept coming back because you were being friendly." She looked down at her hands, nervously fiddling with them. He made her nervous? The shoe was on the other foot, now?

"I'm glad you found my company enjoyable," he said. "I like to spend time with you, as well."

"What do you want from me, Irving?" She looked at him blankly. "You know there is no happy family in the wasteland."

He opened his mouth and closed it. "I..."

"A physical relationship? Or do you want love?" She clenched her fists together. "I'm only good at one of those things."

The thoughts that crossed his mind were upsetting him. She was talking about... Emily was calling herself...? Why would she― "If you continue to make disparaging remarks about yourself―"

She growled. "I'm saying the truth!" she said, angrily. "I'm not a good person, and you are. You fight for the wasteland, _protecting_ people, continuing the Brotherhood tradition. I'm just―Emily, and I only did what I did at the purifier to finish my dad's work. Not because of the wastes, not because of any person, just because I wanted to get that _done_ and give my dad a legacy."

"It's your legacy, too!" he said. His voice was more animated than he would have cared to admit. "People will remember the Lone Wanderer more than they will remember James."

"That's a shame," she said. "Because I didn't come up with it, or start it, or do anything other than finish it. I came late to the fight." She looked sad.

Irving stood and went to her and wrapped his arms around her, in a bold move that he wasn't sure he could pull off. _Who dares, wins, right?_ He held her for a moment, staring into her dark eyes, and tried to pool his courage so that he could give her another kiss. On his terms, this time―without the awkwardness.

"You should not feel so terribly for your work," he said. "It takes more than one person to do something great."

She sighed, and leaned into him. He had never dreamed she would be so receptive― "I know, but I don't feel the credit should be mine. I had so much help... even Charon..." she frowned.

Gallows did not want her to talk about the ghoul. He had not cared for the massive monster, even if he was forced to tolerate him for the sake of Emily's helping the Brotherhood. He frowned. "Emily."

She looked up at him and he leaned down, placing his lips onto hers lightly. She pushed into his mouth, opening her mouth slightly and kissing him back. It was far better this time, than it had been before. Passionate, even, and his body was responding to it in a way he felt guilty for.

The only thing that interrupted it was Emily's pained noise and a soft chuckle. "Your armor is _very_ uncomfortable," she practically whispered.

"I am sorry," he whispered back. "I can't really get rid of it."

"Maybe in the future we can have a more... _comfortable_ conversation," she said, her eyes twinkling at him. _Did―did she just?―_ he felt his face flush with blood. "For now, though, we really should go out and kill mutants, or go home."

He sighed, exhaling through his nose. "Emily..."

"You can't trust me, Irving," she said, smiling up at him with a mischievous smile that made his heart thud and other parts of him very confused. "I might do horrible things to you."

 _Oh, Good Lord._ What kind of Pandora's box did he just open? "Are you―" he swallowed hard. "Are you implying you―"

She laughed, but it wasn't a mean laugh at least. "You're so innocent," she said, but the smile hadn't gone away. "I might break you, Irving. Are you prepared to face the consequences?"

He was at a loss for words. "I... don't know, Emily," he managed. His mouth had gone dry and his hands were trembling. She was more aggressive than he had expected. He wasn't sure he liked it.

"Well, we need to get out of here, either way," she said, removing his hands from around her. "Because I doubt Sarah's instructions for you included... _this."_ She chuckled, and her hands lingered on his for a moment.

Gallows stared at her for a while longer and removed his hands, replacing his helmet. "As you wish," he said, as neutrally as possible.

"That's better," she said. "Now, let's go kill some mutants and we'll see what happens in the morning, okay?"

Gallows nodded. As they left the lee of the bridge, he thought to himself that maybe his estimation of the Wanderer―Emily―had been different than the reality, but...

But was it really such a bad thing? She did like him. She... wanted him, in her own way. And he wanted more than friendship, more than nightly runs into the ruins. He wasn't sure how it would go, but it wasn't stupid, to want something to hold onto in this messed-up world.

Irving Gallows resolved to make this into something worth holding onto.


	15. In Which Emily Is Overheard

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

It was a fine morning when he left Point Lookout, but he was not in a good mood. Months had passed, he was almost starving, he was out of shotgun shells and had no idea where to get any more, and he had been wounded repeatedly since his arrival.

Charon was _pissed._

He stood on the barge, staring out at the water, ignoring the woman who was running the barge. Her running dialogue about the time she had spent with the tribals at the location was annoying him, but comfortable... like Emily's chatter. Made him less angry. He―

That stupid fucking purifier―if it had not been for the Lyons woman throwing him out of the way, he would not have cracked his skull against a metal beam and lost consciousness. Emily was convulsing, he was going to help her, and that bitch just threw herself into him like she was a Brahmin butting a fence.

He had woken up on the shore of a river. Half in, half out, with nothing to say for himself but _"What the fuck."_ They must have chucked him into the river. There was no other reason he was so far away from everything but fully healed, dripping wet, and _furious._

That fucker on the barge had picked him up and took him away from the Capital. Tried to sell him to some tribals. He was not in the mood for that. Even the stupid smoothskin woman, who took over the barge after Charon disposed of Tobar, was grumpy with him. But she had offered him a way back into the Capital and that was what he wanted. To get back to what he knew, even if it was not much knowledge.

To get back to Emily. He still did not know what to do with himself around her, but he had nowhere else to go except Underworld. That place had accrued so many shit memories he would rather go back to Emily's shack and risk her accusing him of rape again.

Still did not remember it. She had not been friendly, after that day. He did not understand his own feelings―why he wanted her to stop being stupid and go back to how it had been, before she broke the contract. Maybe she _was_ comfortable for him. ...Maybe he should have had sex with her. He did not feel a desire for her, but she had seemed to want it. Maybe he ought to apologize again and make good on the promise he had made, even if he did not recall what it was. The way she had been acting before they reached the Citadel, he doubted very much she would let him anywhere near her in that capacity.

He did not exactly need her, anymore. He was capable of defending himself, as long as he had shotgun shells. But he had no caps, and having no caps in the wasteland meant you were already dead. He grumbled to himself, watching the water roil around the barge. He was not a scavenger. He was not sure how to remedy the situation except to get back to the Capital and back to Emily.

After hitting the ground in the Capital, he was not sure where to begin. Emily might be at home, but more likely she was traveling. Should he return to Megaton it would be days, even weeks, before she might return. Without ammo for his weapon, he was bound to get himself killed before arriving. He would need caps, and he had none, to buy ammo.

It was dark when he began to wade toward the Jefferson Memorial, intent on securing information. He had to find someone who could get a message to the girl. He needed her to help him get money. That was what he kept telling himself. Eventually he would believe it.

Technicians and other types walked around the outside of the Memorial. Charon stood motionlessly, watching them work, even in the middle of the night. Providing those clean waters that Emily had been so intent on giving to the wastes, up until he damn near broke her spirit.

She had completed her father's work. Charon had activated the purifier for her. As... a peace offering. The look on her face when he had told her he would do it―she was angry, she was surprised, but most of all she was betrayed. Maybe she had thought she could use the radiation in the chamber as an excuse to get herself killed.

Which was _bullshit._ Hopefully she had not succumbed to the ill effects of the radiation that had flooded the chamber after activation. If she was dead, then he would have to go back to Underworld and hope he managed to survive the trip. And survived the residents.

...He could always make himself another contract, he supposed, but he would have to find someone willing to take it up. He doubted that anyone would want him without the original contract in place. He was too dangerous, now.

A soldier approached him. Charon explained he was looking for the Lone Wanderer, as succinct as could be. "Oh, you'll be wanting to go up to the Citadel, then," the woman said. "She's sometimes up there, gallivanting in the dark with Knight Captain Gallows."

Who the hell was Gallows? Charon grumbled to himself and ignored his stomach as he made his way up the river, toward the Citadel. He was not going to be able to get in there, not without Emily. Maybe he would be lucky and they would remember her association to him. He doubted it.

He paused as he approached the bridge. A Brotherhood soldier and another figure―Charon squinted in the moonlight, unable to see very far. Words drifted across the ground.

"I do not mean to accuse you," the soldier was saying.

"It sure as _hell_ sounds like it!"

Emily.

He moved to the side of the bridge, hiding himself under the edge. The two were talking in such a manner that he was not comfortable interrupting―Emily was angry enough at him. Needed to not push her, if he planned to get caps from her.

The two moved downward into the lee of the bridge and Charon crouched with his back against the wall, listening to the conversation. It did not take him very long to understand what was going on.

She had found a friend. She was very good at that, he knew. Charon breathed evenly, willing himself to lose the anger that was settling into his stomach. _Why_ was he angry? He could not stand the girl; she hated him. Why would he _care?_

Emily was rebuffing the man. Good on her. She ought not to get involved with the Brotherhood; they were theory without practice, something that was never going to last in the wastes. The only thing that lasted in the wastes was piles of Brahmin shit on the roads and ghouls. Charon stared at the rock opposite him and listened to her talking.

"I lost the key to my house. Lost all my keys."

Charon pushed down a wry chuckle. She had not lost them. She had given them to him, because she wanted less weight to move quicker. Assumed he was stronger because he was tall. He was, but she did not need to assume that of him. He knew exactly where her keys were.

The soldier was talking about death. "You get shot, you die. You get stabbed, you die. You get strangled, you die."

"I've had _all_ those things happen to me," Emily murmured.

Charon closed his eyes to the thought. She was definitely referring to him, now. He had done that; he did not remember, but he had. She would not forget. She would hate him for it.

"A physical relationship? Or do you want love? I'm only good at one of those things."

He knew that, too. This soldier did not seem to know what to make of Emily. Charon had accepted her as she was, even when she had been fucking around with Jericho. He had stayed after she pushed him away... because he wanted to. ...Not because he needed her. He was not sure how to feel about that. She was entirely too comfortable for him. It was _strange_ for him. A lot of things had been strange lately.

"...I don't feel the credit should be mine. I had so much help... even Charon..."

Why did she sound sad? She ought to sound angry as _hell!_ She had accused him of raping her!

"I might break you, Irving. Are you prepared to face the consequences?"

Charon crept away from the bridge. It was wrong of him to return. She would not want him around. She had moved on from whatever it was that they had, the relationship and the contract being broken. The... drinking, and what had happened after.

Charon growled to himself and felt like an idiot. That made him angry.

* * *

The first thing he did was intimidate a local scavenger into giving him some ammo. It was not something he enjoyed doing―reminded him too much of how Ahzrukhal had made him act. But he was not about to die in the wastes like a bitch, and the scavenger was an easy target.

Having secured ammo, he returned to Megaton. Without Emily, it felt awkward. She had not apparently bothered to come back to the town. Without the keys to her shack, she had no way to get into her shack. Or had she not wanted to come back to the memory he had given her? Perhaps it was Jericho she did not want to face.

Charon would fix that. He might not be able to make it okay for Emily, any other way.

He walked up the metal ramp to her shack, pulled the massive key ring from his pocket, and unlocked her door.

Once inside, he looked around. He was not going to steal from her, but he was hungry. She would... understand. He would figure out the consequences afterward. He ate in silence, and stared at the Vault-Tec bobbleheads she had collected.

He glanced behind him at the bookshelf. She had not bothered to collect and repair the mess. After he had eaten, he picked up the teddy bears and replaced them on the shelf and put the toy cars she had collected back into their positions. She had collected so many toys; he wondered if she was holding onto some memory in the past, for having so many childish things around.

Maybe it was because of her father. He did not know. He made the house look neat, cleaned up his trash, and rummaged in her desk for ammo. She was a scavenger. She barely sold anything, if she did not need the money.

He left the shack, locked the door, and stared across the walkway at Jericho's shack. His shotgun was up on his shoulder, cold eyes staring. The man would probably be asleep in the middle of the day. He spent his nights drinking at Moriarty's until the bar closed or he had managed to scrape enough caps together to sleep with the whore at the saloon.

Emily wanted the old bastard to sleep with her... she was lonely. The man was more than likely riddled with disease. Charon, who had never been inclined to such thought, wondered if he was any different than the man. He was violent, he was much older than her, and he had done the same things to Emily that Jericho had done... if more successfully, and against her will. And she had _still_ wanted him, after?

Emily had problems. Who did _not_ have problems, in the wasteland? The world was insane.

Charon smiled grimly to himself. Murdering the ex-raider would not "make it okay" in his book, nor would it make it okay for Emily. It _would_ negate one reason she might feel reluctant to return home. And the insanity of the world would be reduced by one piss-drunk lump of useless shit.

He went to the door of the shack and lifted his foot.


	16. In Which Emily Moves On

Update: Comma hunting.

* * *

The door exploded, slamming open. Charon stepped into the shack and moved his shotgun down from his shoulder, and looked around quickly. The shack was smaller than it appeared on the outside. Jericho was in a nook behind the fridge, sprawled out face up, on a mattress that had more bodily fluids on it than the one Winthrop slept on in Underworld.

He moved to the bed and lifted his foot, pinning the ex-raider's chest. The shotgun went to the man's head and Charon paused, for a moment.

He was able to define his actions, now. If he murdered a man in cold blood, he wanted that man to know who was doing the murdering and why. Jericho's eyes popped open and registered the gun with a few drunken blinks.

"What the _fuck―"_ he began, lifting his head off the mattress.

Charon pushed the shotgun into his nose and his head went backward into the bed. "You know why I am here."

 _"Fuck!"_ Jericho struggled a little, under his boot. "What the _fuck!"_

Charon repeated himself. "You know why I am here."

"Did that _bitch_ order you―" Jericho's hands tried in vain to remove Charon's boot from his chest. "What the _fuck!_ I ain't seen her in _months!"_

"I was not ordered," Charon said, staring down at him without expression. "I am no longer taking orders from Emily."

 _"Fuck!"_

Charon looked at the man. He was wrinkled, weather-beaten, but in good physical condition. His hair had been falling out for some time, leaving him bald on the top of his head. Charon, in comparison to Jericho, was hideous. Jericho, in comparison to Emily, was unattractive. The bottom of the barrel. She had scraped him up because there was no one else she felt would sleep with her. She was desperate. With the soldier showing her interest, she had moved up in quality. Charon was nothing special compared to any smoothskin, other than his presence and ability to kill.

Why he cared at that point, about his physical appearance, he did not know. It was being in close proximity to the man that Emily had been so intimate with that caused him concern. ...If she _cared_ about appearances, she would not have let him go so far with her the day that he had drunk her scotch. She had been sober at that time. But not with Jericho.

"You do not deserve to live," Charon told him. "You are _filth."_

"Yeah, _and?"_ The man was staring up at him, now. "So _what!_ Everyone's filth!"

He lost his words for a moment. He stared at Jericho, unsure why he'd thought it was a good idea to let the man understand why he was about to die.

"If you're gonna kill me, _do it, fucker!"_

Charon pressed his boot into Jericho's chest, leaned forward, and growled. "No one tells me what to do, anymore," he said.

"Yeah?" The ex-raider grunted in pain and choked out a laugh. "Fine, kill me. _Do it,_ zombie!"

Charon did not want to kill the man, now. He knew he needed to, to try make it okay for Emily, but his pride was wounded. He did not take orders. He was _free_ of that. Swiftly, he moved the shotgun to the side of the man's head and discharged it into the mattress. Cotton batting flew everywhere and Jericho jerked at the sound, so close to his ears. He swore loudly and covered the side of his head.

Charon removed his boot from the man's chest, lowered his foot to the floor, and strode out of the shack through the busted door. He kept walking, out of Megaton and away from the mess.

He needed Emily to tell him to kill the man. He could not do it on his own; she needed to _tell_ him that it was alright to do so. If she told him she wanted the fucker dead... He would be able to kill him.

But it would not be an order, if she told him that. It would be a _request._

* * *

Charon waited on the bridge outside the Citadel for three days before anything remotely interesting happened. He was grateful to the Brotherhood in a small way; a few of the soldiers recognized him from the battle at the purifier and in apparent awe of his indestructibility, offered him food. He had forgotten to bring any from Emily's house.

He saw the soldier with whom Emily had been speaking, passed by him every night once the sun went down. They ignored each other, mutually respectful in silence. Charon could care less what the man did. He was only at the Citadel because he did not know where else Emily would be.

On the third day, as the sun was setting, he saw Emily. He remained seated on the railing. He was... glad to see her, if only because she signaled the end of his vigil. He was not sure how else he should feel, to see her again after so many months.

She was not paying attention or she did not notice him. She walked past him and was on the dirt before he growled in annoyance. Emily's head snapped around at the sound, as he stood and she started to pull her weapon.

"You had better not miss," he grumbled.

 _"Charon?!"_ Emily dropped her rifle and flew at him, grabbing his forearms. Her eyes traveled his body and rested on his face, and she dropped her hands to the side. She pulled back her hand and slapped him across the face. "You _fucker!"_ she yelled.

It was... the response he had expected. He had expected a standoffish Emily, but a violent one was also right. He did not like violent Emily. Charon growled loudly, and grabbed her wrist tightly. "I dislike this attitude," he snarled at her. "I have had a _trying_ time, getting back to the Capital. Revise yourself."

"You were _supposed to be dead!"_ she hissed. Her eyes were dark in her face. Charon stared, unblinking, at her.

"I was thrown into the river," he answered. "I went with the current."

She blinked rapidly. She was _crying?_ What the hell―she hated him, why would she bother to cry over him? He released her wrist, dropping his hand to his side. Him being dead... explained why she might feel sad over him, but she should not cry. She should _hate_ him.

"What―" she began, and swallowed loudly. She stood quietly for a few minutes, apparently trying to think of what to say. "Do you have my house keys?" she asked, abruptly.

Charon blinked. Slowly, he drew out the key ring and handed it to her. She received the keys and sighed in visible relief. "I returned because I have no caps," he said. "And little ammo."

Emily grumbled under her breath. "Jesus _Christ,_ Charon," she muttered.

"I also need you to ask me to murder that bastard Jericho," he added, quietly.

Her eye flicked up to his. "What? Why―why would you need me to _ask?"_

Charon looked out across her head, at the Citadel, at the soldiers walking around in the nearing dark. "I... do not know."

"Well, then, why the hell were you going to kill Jericho?!"

He breathed out. He had almost forgotten how annoying she could be. "To make it okay."

She was speechless for a long time. Stood there staring at him, her eyes deepening with shadows as the moon rose. He watched her eyes. There was nowhere else he could have looked, in that moment.

"It won't work," she said, finally, her voice husky with emotion. "It won't make it any _better._ Won't make it okay."

"I know," he said.

She sighed and wiped her nose, looking down and away. "I―I wish you hadn't come back," she said.

"If you are referring to your relationship with the soldier, I will not interfere."

Emily's head jerked up and she stared at him again, but angrily. _"How―"_ Charon did not answer. Emily growled in frustration. "I swear to God, there are nothing but _busybodies_ in the fucking wastes!" she said, throwing her hands up. "I can't do anything without Bob next door knowing everything about it!"

"I need your help," he said. "I do not care about the soldier. I need you to help me."

Emily stopped her animated gestures of anger and turned her head to him. "You've been on your own for months, now," she said. "Why would you need _my_ help?"

"No caps," he answered.

She laughed, a full-bellied and happy sound. It went on for ages, and although he did not like being laughed at, he was... glad to hear her happy, after the shit that had happened between them. He even smiled.

Emily stopped laughing at his smile. She lost hers, and her brows drew together. "I've never seen you smile, before," she said.

"It is not such an alien concept," he muttered, and looked away, in anger.

"No, it's fine. It's... nice." She retrieved her rifle and slung it over her back. "So, what do you want? I'm a little short of caps right now―"

"I need a job," he growled, looking across the water.

"Oh. Well." She shrugged. "I guess you could come with me. Now that I have my keys, I can get some proper jobs done, and make decent money."

"You would have your rapist follow you?" he asked, his voice thick with vexation.

"We will start over," she said, firmly. "Like I wanted to, before all that happened. Just forget the past, and start again."

"You think it will be so easy?"

Emily screwed her mouth up, looking at him in a funny way. "It's either that, or you actually make it okay like you said you would. I know you don't want to do _that."_

Charon turned to look at her and was unsure how to respond. He had thought about that. She would not want him, he thought. But she did not seem to care. He had thought she would not want to touch him, even. But she had.

"You are a _strange_ person, Emily," he said, confused.

She laughed at that. "I know!" she cheered. "I'm trying my _very_ best."

"...From what I understood, your soldier would be more interested in such a proposition."

She hesitated. "Not sure I would want that," she said. "I'm... hard to handle."

Charon barked out a laugh and she jumped a little. Another alien concept for her, his laughter. Any positive emotion drew a weird little jump from her. "Hard to handle is an accurate way of saying it." He looked past her and grumbled a little. "Deal with your soldier," he muttered, and returned to his spot on the railing.

She turned as he said that, and crossed the ground to meet the soldier. Charon sat on the railing and waited. He could hear her talking across the way, and heard her voice becoming agitated.

The soldier did not want her to go with Charon. _Anywhere._ Had Emily told him? He doubted it. She had not told anyone, that he was aware of, and if she wanted to forget the past, it would be best not to divulge information that could damn the both of them. The soldier apparently did not trust Charon, did not trust most ghouls, and did not approve of his being her companion.

Fuck him. Charon did not care what the soldier thought. Emily's opinions mattered _more,_ because she was invested in him. Through their past, the contract, and simple association. It did not matter to him that she had known the soldier longer than she had known him.

When Emily returned to him she was crying again, and this time Charon felt sick to his stomach. Why, he could not say. It made him angry that she would cry over someone who was intending her well, even if that wellness meant she should not do what she wanted. She had cried over her father for the same reason, he knew. He recalled the conversations she had had with the man, as they had escorted him to Rivet City.

Charon growled. If the soldier was not careful, he would end up on the list of people Charon would very _much_ like to shoot.


	17. The Ending With Charon (Part One)

Note: So, uh, had to write out all three endings. This is the one I like best, but if you want to read the Gallows ending (which isn't very good, IMHO) then skip to chapter 19. If you want to read the Jericho ending, try chapter 20 (extremely bad and violent, shame on me). Chapters 17 and 18 are the Charon ending, which is a good ending. Warning, sex in all three endings.

Update: Uh, so I use words in quick succession and that's bad so sue me, fixed.

* * *

It was sort of funny. Charon had made the shack neat―she asked him specifically, because it was a little alarming to think that some unknown could have come into the shack while she was gone. He admitted to it in a terse fashion. Emily imagined him picking up the mess like a harried janitor, grumbling under his breath. So she laughed, because that was what you did when something was funny.

She... hadn't _forgotten_ what had happened, but she was trying to. She wasn't as angry as she had been. It happened. It was over with, and the only person who remembered it at all was her. She was sure she could forget. She just wanted to have someone to talk to. Charon didn't seem to want to leave; he was stuck to her like glue.

Half of her damn problem was that she was the Lone Wanderer; it was not exactly a title that lent to friendliness, when people were so intimidated by the title and her reputation. Her fault, _again._

She just had no luck whatsoever when it came to reputation.

Charon didn't speak very much. She didn't see Jericho, either. She supposed something went on between the two of them. Jericho should have been up her ass the minute her feet hit that walkway. The sheriff hadn't bothered to come around and register a complaint, so she had no idea why Jericho would stay away. He didn't even show up to say hi, after she'd been missing for so long.

...After she'd slept in her bed and had a meal that she didn't have to scrape off of a cave wall, bicker over price about, or pray hadn't gone rotten from 200 years of stolidity, she sat down on her couch and just... relaxed.

Emily didn't know what to do. The last couple of months, locked out of her house and kept away from town by bad memories... she sighed and put her hand in her chin, staring blankly at the wall. She'd spent the majority of that just running about the wastes, scavenging what she needed to survive, selling junk and praying she would find a safe place to sleep before she passed out.

Hadn't even bothered to think about what she was gonna do in the long term. Without the Brotherhood, she was free to do what she wanted. But what she wanted to do, she had no idea.

"Charon?" she asked. "You really don't know how to get home?"

He grumbled a little, standing and leaning against the wall between the locker and the crafting table. He didn't answer.

"Well, that's back to normal," she muttered.

"No, I do not," he snapped. "Stop being annoying."

"I'm not annoying, I just asked you a damn question!" She huffed and put her arms over her chest. Charon glared at her. "Yeah, keep _that_ up, why don't you."

He growled. "I am allowed to be angry," he grumbled.

Emily stared at him. "Well, why are you―"

"Because you keep bringing that up, and I do not wish to go there!" He moved away from the wall, hands balled into fists at his side.

"What, are you _afraid?"_ she teased. He strode over the floor toward her. She flinched, unintentionally.

"I am _not,"_ he said, in a low voice. He stared down at her. "And you have not... forgotten."

"I'm trying," she muttered. She stood up and looked up at him. He was so damn tall; her head fit just under his chin. "I really am, Charon."

"You will never forget," he said, and turned around. His voice was... sad? He moved toward the door.

"Whoa," she said, grabbing his elbow. "Whoa, what―what are you―?"

"I will leave," he said, staring into the air. "You do not need me around."

"Hey, _I'm_ the one who said let's go," she protested, pulling on his arm. He wouldn't turn around. "You need a job, remember?"

"I do not _need_ to walk around with a person who is scared of me," he growled.

Emily laughed. "You told me before that everything in the wastes is scared of you," she said, moving around to his front. She stared up at him.

He said nothing, just worked his jaw. Emily sighed. "Well, I can't stop you from leaving, obviously. It takes time to work through a problem, you know." She crossed her arms and looked at the teddy bears on the bookshelf. Should get rid of the whole thing, she thought.

"Why..." He looked down at her. "Why did you cry, when you were talking to your soldier."

Emily jerked in surprise. "What?" She turned her head back to him.

"When we left the Citadel, you were crying. Why?"

She opened her mouth and closed it. "...I don't like being told what to do," she mumbled.

"And he would have?"

She pursed her lips and made a frustrated noise. "I'm not exactly _wife_ material," she muttered. Gallows had given her an ultimatum; drop the ghoul and come with him, or he would swear her off entirely. She wasn't about to tie herself down to him. He was... a little _too_ pushy, once she'd gotten to know him.

 _I ought to have cried harder,_ she thought. He hurt her, rejecting her like that. She wiped her nose and looked down at Charon's feet. The ghoul moved his arm up and held her shoulder roughly. "Shall I shoot him?" he asked, in what sounded like a gentle voice. Emily couldn't help but hear the gruffness underneath. Charon never did anything without sounding mean.

She spat out a mean laugh. "No, I'm good, thank you." She moved away and rubbed her biceps. "It's just... It _sucks._ Trying to find someone who you belong with."

Charon grumbled an appreciative noise. "Even if you belong with someone dangerous," he muttered.

"Exactly," she said, and shot him a look over her shoulder. "Don't go."

"I will not," he said, in that weird gruff-soft voice.

Emily wiped her nose again, staring at the stairs. She remembered him dragging her up and down. "I mean, sometimes I feel like I don't belong because it's all my fault, but then I wonder if... if it's just me bringing out the _worst_ in people." She sighed. "I... did that back in the Vault, too."

Charon made another appreciative noise. "You _can_ be very irritating," he rasped.

"Fuck you, man," she laughed, in exasperation. Her hands were twisting themselves around each other in nervous tension. _What?_

"You should stop saying that."

"Oh, yeah?" She snorted and looked back at him. _"Why?"_

Charon moved behind her, standing a little closer than she wanted him to. "Someone might think it is an invitation," he said, and his hand landed on her shoulder.

Emily flinched again. Charon sighed. "Hey, I said I'm working on it!" she groused. Her face was hot. Why―Why he made her feel like she― She sighed to herself. He made her feel like she was alright, most of the time, even when he was doing terrible things. She didn't understand it.

"There is only one available solution to this problem," he was grumbling.

Emily turned her head and looked up at him, her eyebrow raised. She turned quickly and stepped backward from the look on his face, pulling her shoulder out from under his hand. It was not a good look at all. "...What?" she asked, even though she really didn't want to know.

"You should allow me to make it okay," he said, staring at her with a face that was half murderous intent and half smile.

"After all those times you said―" she felt her face catching fire. "You _do not want this_ ," she said, imitating him.

Charon laughed. Emily jumped at the sound. "You are too skittish around me," he said. "We need to release the tension."

"Now, Charon, you know I'm always up for it―" Emily shrugged. "But I really don't know―"

He stepped forward again and his hand was on her cheek, roughly tracing the curve. It actually hurt, a little, as his skin scraped against hers. She shivered. "There is not much fear when _you_ have a man naked," he said. "I have seen it happen."

Emily shivered again. She wanted to say no, and yes. _What the hell do I do?_ Part of her was happy she at least stopped to ask herself that, but then she felt mad at herself for making herself angry. "Yeah, alright," she muttered, angrily. "I'm in charge, though. You remember that."

Charon grunted in approval and grabbed her hand, leading her up the stairs. Emily followed―she couldn't exactly pull away―it _was_ Charon, after all―and her boots hit the metal with soft thudding noises. He moved her to the bedroom door and let her open it.

Once inside, he immediately began to take off his armor. "You are just _all business,"_ she muttered, watching him.

Charon shook his head as his shirt went over his head. She took a moment to stare at the ruined flesh again, running her eyes over the contours of his muscles. It looked absolutely awful.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, out of curiosity.

He shot her a mean glance and started pulling at buckles on his pants, roughly. "It is not a fucking _sunburn,_ Emily," he growled.

She laughed. "O- _kay,"_ she said, waving him away with a hand. "Sheesh!"

Charon reached out a swift hand and grabbed her wrist, pulling her close to him. "Yes, _it hurts,"_ he said in a serious tone, staring down at her. "It hurts like _nothing else_ in the entire world."

She colored, looking away in embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "Was curious, is all."

He released her. "Get undressed, Emily," he said, looking down at his hands on his buckles.

"I thought I said _I_ was in charge," she whined. He shot her another look and she giggled at the stupidity. "Alright, _al_ right," she said. Her heart was fluttering, her hands shaking. _Why am I so nervous,_ she wondered. _Never had a problem with this sort of thing, before._

Charon deposited his pants on the floor and kicked them away, then moved behind her to the bed. She heard the frame creaking loudly, heard the soft muttering he was making. A glance backward told her he was completely naked now, and muttering because he was―too tall for the frame―she snickered as she pulled her shirt over her head.

"I heard that," he grumbled.

"It's funny!" she said, stubbornly. _God,_ she was so nervous. Her hands shook on her pants buckles.

When she turned to get into the bed with him she almost lost control of her legs, the tension building so badly. "Charon," she started, and her voice was wobbling. _Get it together, Emily._

"Last chance," he muttered, staring up at the ceiling.

The nervousness was replaced by irritation. She scoffed, and put her hands on her hips. "Are you even going to _enjoy_ this?" she asked. She narrowed her eyes at him.

He glanced at her and she shivered again. "If we do it right, neither of us have much choice," he rasped.

"I suppose," she said. "How―"

He reached out and pulled her closer to the bed. She was so nervous, she jumped a little. "Relax," he said. "You have an imagination. Use it."

Emily's face burned to a crisp. "I'm not―pretending you're someone else!" she said, angrily. "That's _rude!"_

"Then get in bed," he said, and his eyes on her face were hard. Emily swallowed fear.

 _"Fine,"_ she hissed, and set a knee on the edge of the mattress, swinging her leg over the ghoul.


	18. The Ending With Charon (Part Two)

Note: Part two of the Charon ending. Again, if you want to read the Gallows ending, skip to Chapter 19; for Jericho's ending skip to Chapter 20 (extremely bad ending, violent). This chapter is pretty much just smut. :)

* * *

Emily moved herself to rest on his stomach, feeling the ragged skin of his sides against her thighs. Charon immediately reached out and grabbed her hips, staring at her. She felt the nervousness return, looking down at him. She closed her eyes and swallowed.

"I am not going to hurt you," he said, running a hand along her skin and up her side.

"Don't think you can help it," she murmured, feeling his hand traveling along her side and up to her breast. He rubbed her gently, along the side, touching her flesh. She kept her eyes closed.

"That is only a side-effect of my physical condition," he rasped, and touched a nipple with his thumb, moving it in a circle.

"Have you ever―" she grimaced as he pinched her nipple roughly. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Once or twice," he muttered, and moved his other hand to touch her other breast. "It has been a while." Emily felt her back stiffening with the soft touches―how the hell he managed to feel like sandpaper, but still gentle, she had no idea. "Relax, Emily," he said.

"That's what you said before," she muttered. "I don't know if I _can."_

Charon shifted his weight under her and grabbed her under the armpits, leaning her back as he sat up. "Are you in charge or are you not?" he asked her.

She felt his dick against her ass, rigid and unmoving. She bit her lip, trying to relax. "I―"

Charon leaned his head closer to her and ran his mouth along her collarbone, and she hissed. His jaw against her chest was sharp-feeling, painful but weirdly good. He moved his mouth to her neck and made little nipping motions. "Are you, or are you _not?"_ he asked, again.

"I guess _not,"_ she said, and drew a breath when he bit a little too hard. "Oww!"

"Sorry." He withdrew his head. "Open your eyes."

Emily laid her hands on his shoulders and breathed in deeply. "Give me a minute, okay?" He smelled... like warm skin and dirt, under the leather. A faint hint of decay, but nothing obvious. She felt her skin breaking out in goosebumps as he ran a hand up her back, starting from the dips in her lower back.

"If you are not in charge," he said, "then I will take initiative."

Emily gasped and opened her eyes wide as a rough tongue ran a circle around her nipple, tracing the bumps of her areola. _"Ohhh,"_ she moaned, tilting her head back. A tingle ran through her, down her front and into her stomach.

Charon released one side and moved onto the other, making a snorting noise. She gripped his shoulders harder, splaying her fingers over the remaining skin. Maybe it wasn't all bad―there was nothing smooth to touch, really, but everything made her fingertips tingle with pleasure.

A short sharp pain ran through her as he bit her nipple, and removed his mouth from her breast. He looked up at her face and laid back down, slowly. She moved forward with him, her flesh pressing against his stomach. Her hands came to a rest on his chest, mostly without skin, leathery muscles meeting her touch.

"Your move," he said, and she scoffed a little. The jerk looked smug!

"If you're gonna act like _that,"_ she huffed, "I might have to be mean."

Charon's mouth tugged a little. "How?" he rasped.

"Cheeky," she said, smiling. "Real funny, Charon." She pinched him on the chest, not hard but enough that it registered on his face. Her other hand moved away from his pectoral muscle and up to his face. She'd never noticed anything other than those weird eyes―staring up at her now, without emotion. Both her hands moved to his cheeks and she leaned forward onto her elbows.

"Do you remember being―" she started.

He grabbed her wrists and looked away. "Yes," he said. He sounded upset. She regretted asking.

"I like you as you are," she said, firmly, and ran one hand up to his scalp, smoothing out a tangle of hair. "Patchy hair and all," she grinned.

"Do not take delight in that," he muttered, still looking away. "You'll sleep with just about _anything."_

Emily gasped in disgust and pushed herself upward, smacking him in the chest. "If you're gonna be an asshole about this―"

Charon snorted. "The truth hurts."

"Oh, that's just fine!" she hissed. "I'm trying― _trying to enjoy myself_ and you're fucking around, that's _just fine!"_ She started to get up off of him, muttering curses to herself.

Charon grabbed her hips and wouldn't let her move. "Are we making this okay or not?" he growled. "You take me as I am, I take you as you are."

She paused, and lowered herself under his hands. He was right in that she would sleep with anyone. It was nothing to be proud of, and he―was a violent ghoul. "That's the important bit, huh."

"If you intend to make something out of nothing," he added, "like you always do―"

"Now you're really being an asshole!" she snarled, and raised a hand to slap him. "Don't you fucking _push_ me―"

Charon grabbed her wrists and pushed himself upward, knocking her backward onto the bed. She inhaled in shock, him sitting up and her with her back on the mattress. A twitch of flesh against her ass reminded her that he was hard.

"I think," he said, letting one of her wrists go, running a hand across her face and pushing her hair out of the way, "that you are a fighter, no matter what."

She gritted her teeth and glared at him. "What _-ever,"_ she muttered, and looked away.

Charon ran a thumb down her forehead and onto her nose, then touched her lips. "It is good to be mean, sometimes," he said, and his mouth tugged again. "But it will _not_ help make it okay."

"Fine," she said. _"Fine,_ I'll stop fighting, but you gotta stop being a _jerk."_

He released her other hand and pulled her upright, looking her in the eyes. "I will," he said, solemnly. He kissed her on the mouth, and she jerked in surprise.

It wasn't unpleasant, but... weird. He had no lips, just muscles, so it wasn't soft; it was hard and she felt a jolt of electricity run through her body. She kissed him back, grabbing his cheeks, pulling him into her. It was desperate and it _hurt,_ but she liked it that way.

Her legs curled up around his back, heels digging into his ass. Charon ran his hands down to her hips again and pulled her backward. His erection sprang up between them, and he pulled her forward into himself, rubbing her roughly along his length. She gasped into his mouth and tried to move her head away, but he bit her lip and kept her from moving.

She kept her eyes open, staring into his. "This is not going to be very pleasant, at first," he warned her, when he released her lip. "But if you go slow..."

"I got it," she whispered. "I can handle it."

"Are you sure?" His eyes looked like he was laughing at her. She growled a little and smashed her mouth into his, jamming her tongue into his teeth. He grunted through his nose and the puff of air made her eyes close.

Emily moved her feet to the sides of his thighs, and pushed herself up, catching him with the hood of her mound, and directed him downward and inside.

Ah, shit! He was right―it was painful and she grimaced against his mouth, groaning. He slipped inside and his cock caught her flesh, scraping with pain against the sides. Charon made a small groan as she let gravity bring her down, and gently pushed the rest of the way.

She was panting in pain by the time he was all the way inside, pressing against her cervix. She laid her head on his shoulder and felt her arms and legs trembling. "Emily," he said, brushing his mouth against her ear. "I do not have to do this."

She snorted in frustration. "That is not what you said, earlier," she snarled. "Goddammit, man, make up your fucking mind."

He growled a little. "I am trying to be nice," he said, in her ear. "If you prefer me to be mean..."

"No―" she sat up and stared him down. "No! It's―I'm just―"

Charon laid a hand on her cheek and rubbed his forehead to hers. "Then go slow, and be careful."

She nodded, and pushed herself upward. After an inch she had to stop, groaning. "Oh, _God,"_ she said. "This is―gonna be hard."

He rested his hands on her hips and looked down between them. Emily pushed up again, pulling herself off of him, and back down. The second time it wasn't as painful, and she moved a little faster. He let her move as she wanted, picking up a little speed.

About the fourth or fifth time―she couldn't tell, the pain was starting to blur together inside of her―he groaned loudly and asked her to stop. "It has been a long time," he said. "Never since..."

She paused on him, and cupped his face with her palms. "Maybe slow is not good for you, then," she said. She moved down, and he pressed his lips together in a loud painful groan.

It wasn't going to feel good for her, at all, she thought. Might as well help him out―half the reason why they were even doing this was to get the air clear between them. She started to move faster, pushing with her thigh muscles, and he panted through his nose.

It was a slow burn for her, she realized. His hands digging into her hips, not letting her move more than an inch or two as she moved up and down along his shaft... He had no fingernails, and she could feel the bones poking into her. He grunted and groaned and made a lot of little breathy noises, and she couldn't tell if she was anywhere close until he slammed into her with a loud moan of pleasure.

She yelped, and wrapped her arms around his back, clutching at his shoulder blades. Charon took over, grinding into her, pushing and pulling her hips. She felt the first wave of pleasure down her legs, warmth spreading along her thighs.

"Oh, God!" she moaned. _"...Fuck!"_

Charon was breathing down her back now, her face pressed into his neck, eyes shut and riding out the feeling. He groaned again, shuddering under her. "Emily―"

"Don't stop, don't you _fucking dare,"_ she hissed.

He didn't. Emily grabbed his neck with her teeth and moaned loudly through the flesh, her thighs tightening against his, feeling the sharp jolts up her spine every time he brought her back down. It was intense, and she couldn't think a single thought, her brain overloaded with pleasure.

"Emily―" he said again, and groaned in her ear. "I cannot―"

"God!" she moaned. "Oh, _God, just―"_

Charon came inside her, thrusting hard into her, and the pain made her head spin. She gasped and felt herself going, like she was about to fall into nothingness, her eyes unfocused and hands twisting into his flesh. He slowed to a stop as she reveled in the feeling, the intensity.

It was the best she'd ever had.

Slowly she relaxed herself, leaning onto him, his breaths still coming in little pants, his cock inside her twitching as he was still―still? _Seriously?_ She laughed a little, weakly.

"Are you alri―" he asked, as she began to pull away from him.

"Jesus _Christ,"_ she moaned, running her hands along his neck and up to his face. "Just... _Christ!"_

"Did we make it okay?" he asked. He sounded concerned.

"Oh, God, I _hope_ not," she muttered. "That was―"

"Again?" he asked, his hands tightening on her hips.

"Fuck!" she laughed. "No, no! It was _great!_ Just... oh, _God,_ I―I didn't know it would be _that_ good." She grinned at him, her face sweating. The room was hot as hell now, with his body flush against hers. _"Christ,_ I don't think _I've_ ever been broken. Usually I do the breaking."

Charon blinked at her. "That is good?" he asked.

"That is fucking _amazing,_ thank you Charon," she said, and leaned back onto him. "I hope you do want to do that again, at some point." She closed her eyes and felt his hands moving up to her back.

"We should take a break," he murmured. "You were screaming again, and you know that brings the sheriff down on us."

 _"Oh my God I don't even care,"_ she breathed, nuzzling his neck.

A loud banging on the door interrupted them. Emily just smiled and pressed herself against Charon, and ignored it.

"...Can we make it okay tomorrow, too?" she asked.

Charon laughed, and for the first time in the whole time they'd been traveling, she wasn't weirded out by that sound.

"I will make it okay any time you want, Emily."

She just smiled, sleepily.


	19. The Ending With Gallows

Note: Gallows ending; I call this the "good" ending because it doesn't really fix anything (it's not very good, IMHO) but it has that fairy tale ending going on. If you want to read the Charon ending (two parter), skip to Chapter 17; for Jericho's ending skip to Chapter 20 (extremely bad ending, violent). There is a little nookie in this.

* * *

Gallows watched Emily leave, his tongue firmly pinched between his teeth. He'd desperately wanted to grab her and not let her leave, to make her go inside the Citadel with him and let the ghoul to deal with the wastes on his own. She was firm with him―she didn't want to leave him alone, without help, until he was stable enough. Didn't have any caps, couldn't afford ammo. "Gallows, you should know that means death."

Yeah, well. He'd rather the damn ghoul had stayed dead. Emily _was_ going to go out with him, but now she _wasn't,_ and he'd found the perfect hiding spot away from the mutants in the ruins. He'd wanted to hole himself up with her and―well, she said it, before. The "horrible things" she might do to him were something that had been on his mind for at least a week, waking him up in an uncomfortable fashion every day.

The guilt was gone. She'd kissed that away from him, when they returned from the ruins on that night of denouement. Emily was... not "nice" in the ladylike sense, but the feelings he got from her were _more_ than enough to let him overlook it. She might be crude, but she was still Emily and she still made his chest tighten when she smiled. She still made his breath catch in his throat, when her hair bounced around her head in the moonlight. She was still hard to talk to, sometimes.

If he could have her for himself, at least _once,_ she would be his forever. That, he promised himself.

He grumbled to himself as he marched back into the Citadel. As much as he wanted to kill mutants and get away from the idiotic antics of the Pride, he couldn't go out there without Emily. Not _tonight._

* * *

She returned after a few weeks and looked chipper, her eyes lit up and face smiling. For _him?_ Well, yes, he supposed. No one else in the Citadel would get her smile or happy words.

"Going out?" she asked, popping her head into the door of the Den. He'd been laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about a lot of things. Mostly he'd been imagining what it would be like to be married, to have a family with her. The "happy family" she said would never exist in the wastes. It wasn't impossible. Others in the Brotherhood had families... he could, too. If she would understand that he wanted to be with her, for good.

Gallows looked at her over his power armor's chest plate and sat up slowly. "I don't know," he muttered.

"You okay?" she asked, concerned. Gallows grumbled and stared at his feet. Why did she _bother._ She had her house keys, she could go anywhere she wanted. She hadn't wanted to stay with him; she had wanted to get back home with that damn ghoul. She'd been gone for a few weeks. Gallows felt a little out-of-sorts that his words carried no weight, when he'd warned her that she couldn't trust a zombie.

But she'd been excited, because the ghoul was back from the dead. He growled in a low tone.

"Irving?" she asked, moving closer. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing I would talk about here," he said.

"Then let's go," she said, jerking a thumb at the door. "Get out of here, go into the ruins."

Gallows pulled himself upward and picked up his rifle. "Alright."

It was about an hour later before he even opened his mouth. They cleared a path through the ruins, and he led her on a winding route around the rubble. He pointed up at a building and told her he knew a safe place to talk. She nodded and followed him inside.

The way through the building meant they had to crawl under a few desk barricades, but it was good bet that the mutants wouldn't bother to come after them in the near-black air of the office building. He went behind her and watched their back, and opened the half-gone door to the room for her.

"This is a neat little hiding spot," she whispered, looking around. She poked an old soda on a desk and snickered a little. "What's up, then?" she said, turning back to him.

Gallows ripped his helmet off and marched up to her, tossing it to the side. He grabbed her cheeks and laid a kiss on her mouth so heavy she stumbled backward. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"O- _kay,"_ she said, slowly. "What―"

"Emily," he murmured, holding her cheeks. "I want you to stay with me in the Citadel."

"What―"

"I want you to stay with me. I don't want you wandering around the wastes, getting shot at, getting hurt. I don't want you hanging out with people who wouldn't bury you, if you _died."_ He squeezed her face a bit harder, putting his forehead to hers.

She blinked at him. "Irving, I―" She smiled nervously. "I'm the Lone Wanderer."

 _"Don't_ be." He sighed, and closed his eyes, trying to keep his head from exploding with emotion. _Please understand,_ he thought. _Please, Emily._

"...I can't just give up what I've been doing for the last two―"

"Yes, you _can,"_ he whispered. "I'm asking you to."

When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him with a strange smile on her face. She tilted her head after he pulled away and let her go. "Irving, you... _really_ want that, with _me?"_

"I have wanted that since the first time I saw you come into the Citadel." He ran a hand over his face. "I... couldn't talk to you, then."

"Wh―" She screwed up her face in a weird expression.

"...The ghoul," he said. "I... I'm going to tell you a story, okay?"

She nodded, and laid her rifle onto the desk, settling herself into the chair. Gallows put his hands together in nervous tension and cleared his throat.

"When I first... got _here,_ in the Capital." He cleared his throat again. "I didn't have a very good knowledge of the locals."

"I didn't either," she murmured.

"Well―I ended up ducking into the Museum one day, when the Super Mutants outside the Washington Memorial were a little too much to handle. They don't bother with ghouls, so I went to that town they have in there."

"Underworld," she said. "That's where..." she trailed off. "I'm sorry. Please continue." She looked embarrassed.

Gallows sighed. "I had to heal up, so I got a stimpak or two and went upstairs. Some place run by a ghoul named Carol." He stared out into the air, remembering. "I bought some food from the other one."

Emily snorted. "I learned that lesson, too," she muttered.

"I can tell you _this,"_ he said, grimly. "Once I finished puking up my guts I decided that I'd rather be shot by mutants than chance that again."

"Wait―" she sighed. "You don't trust ghouls because Greta half-poisoned you with her nasty food?"

He stared at her for a moment. "I don't trust any local, usually," he answered. "I... changed my mind about you. You've earned my trust."

Emily laughed. Gallows ground his teeth, angrier than he'd been in a long while. "I'm sorry, Irving," she said. "It's just―well, that could have happened to you _anywhere._ Getting bad food, I mean."

"I do not find the memory pleasant," he replied, staring at her with a dark look.

"I understand," she said soothingly. "It's okay. I won't argue."

He grumbled under his breath. "I don't like the idea of you traipsing about with that big ghoul."

"Charon is―" she stopped herself, and sighed. "No, you're right. I shouldn't be. It's not really..." She pushed her hair out of her face and scratched her head. "I don't know why he even came back. He could have stolen everything I owned and vamoosed."

"Could you give me a chance?" he asked her. His eyes were pleading, if she could even see him in the darkness. It was almost black in the room except for her Pip-Boy.

"I could," she said. She smiled in the green light reflecting onto her. "I... _will."_

His heart leapt into his throat. "You're not―being coy, or anything?"

"No," she said, airily. "I am sorry I ever teased you. You _obviously_ can't handle it." She was smirking at him now.

He growled, quietly. "I think I can handle a lot more than you expect," he said.

"Oh?" She stood up and ran a hand up his chest, over the armor. "I really... _really,_ like sex, Irving."

Gallows swallowed hard and reminded himself that it wasn't―wasn't that he'd never done that, he just hadn't had the opportunity very often. "Prove it," he said, surprising himself. Immediately he wished he could withdraw the thought.

 _"Pshh!"_ she said, laughing. "Alright. Get out of that armor. We'll celebrate 'what's more than shooting Super Mutants'." She chuckled, facing away from him, and her tone became mocking.

He was never one to stand down from a challenge. He popped a latch on his armor and her head snapped around at the sound. The look on her face went from one of bemusement to an honest smile.

It usually took five minutes to get out of the armor, but he managed it in less than two. He stood in front of her without the protection against the world, his body cold in the dark room. She smiled wider. "I don't see many scars," she teased.

"I'm good at what I do," he said, heatedly. "Your turn," he added, his breath catching in his throat.

 _She's baited you, you bit the hook._ He sighed to himself. If it meant Emily would get what she wanted, he would act like a cocksure idiot. He watched her, carefully. Later on he could try to make her understand why she shouldn't act so callously.

Emily shrugged. She wasn't taking it seriously. Gallows felt his stomach start to hurt. She drove him crazy, he thought, being so carefree. She unbuckled her armor and discarded it, shimmying out of her underwear as well. Gallows had to control his breathing.

She was beautiful. He knew she would be. Even with the million tiny scars across her body she was just perfect. She scratched at a spot on her arm and her heavy breasts jiggled. He swallowed hard, again.

"How―" he started, but she walked up to him and put a finger on his lips.

"How about you let me start?" she asked.

All he could do was nod. Emily pulled his undershirt up over his head and dropped it to the floor, running her hands along his chest. He closed his eyes to the sensation. She embraced him and brushed his lips with hers, sighing.

"There's no bed in here," she whispered. "We'll have to use the chair. ...Unless you prefer the desk."

 _Oh, Good Lord._ He breathed out shakily, and put a hand on her shoulder. "The chair," he said.

She laughed softly, and moved him to the chair, setting him down in it. "Alright," she said. "Are you sure you―"

"Emily... _shut up,"_ he said, closing his eyes.

"Famous last words," she said, and he watched her get onto her knees. She pulled his underwear to the side and withdrew him. Her hands on him, so soft... He groaned as she touched him, moving her hand up and down on his shaft. He closed his eyes and breathed carefully. A surprising warmth enveloped him and he looked down to see she was sucking him, her head bouncing up and down on his lap.

Gallows gasped at the feeling, her tongue rolling around on his head. Damn―he might not make it past this point, if she didn't―

"Stop, stop, stop," he said. He laid his hands on the back of her head, pulling her hair a little.

"You're touchy," she whispered, her mouth on the very tip of him.

He groaned a little. "Not... _sss!"_ She licked him in a circle under the head of his manhood. "I'm not good with... _that,"_ he muttered.

"That's okay," she murmured. Emily looked up and him and wrapped her breasts around him, leaning forward to place her mouth where it had been before.

"God!" he hissed out, his hips jerking forward into her. He groaned again, longer. It was terrible, again. She always made him feel terrible when he was doing something for the first time... but it was so good. He shuddered and gasped, feeling the pleasure. She had him gone in a very short time; he came into her mouth and she swallowed it all, slowly moving her head up and down. His hands twitched on the back of her head.

When he was lucid enough to say something she was sitting back on her heels, smiling up at him. "I think you needed that," she said, teasingly.

Gallows sighed, his body relaxed. "Maybe," he said.

"Is it my turn?" she asked.

"I will do _anything_ for you," he breathed out. "Anything you want."

"Irving," she chastised. "You shouldn't let a girl dictate what you will and won't do."

He chuckled, relaxed. "Maybe, but it's worth it."

Emily laughed at him again. "I'm not worth it!" she said.

Gallows grabbed her and laid a kiss on her mouth, dipping her down across his lap like the old wartime pictures did. "If you stay with me," he whispered, "you'll always be worth it."

She just smiled widely at him and crinkled those dark blue eyes.

Yeah, he'd do anything for that smile.


	20. The Ending With Jericho (BAD END)

Note: Jericho ending; I call this the "bad" ending because oh my god. Seriously. I should be shot for writing this. If you want to read the Charon ending (two parter), skip to Chapter 17; for Gallows' ending skip to Chapter 19 (not a very good ending). Warning: Extremely violent and bad, rape and terrible things. **You are warned.**

* * *

The trip back to Megaton was boring. Emily and Charon arrived without much fanfare, though she thought she saw Jericho up on the catwalk with Stockholm before the gates opened. He disappeared into town before she could tell.

She was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed. A few months of roughing it out in the wastes wasn't so bad, but she hadn't had a proper bath for as long. She was feeling very... gritty. Wading in the river only did so much.

She walked up the ramp and turned the corner to the house, feeling her feet grow heavier as she moved toward the door. It was good to be home, even if she'd probably have to deal with that jackass again.

Charon suddenly grabbed her and pulled her behind him, as she reached the door. She looked up, then down, in surprise as a beeping sound came from under their feet. The world exploded. _What―_

She landed on her back on the walk and was reeling from the explosion, coughing. Her chest was tight―she'd had the wind knocked out of her, from the impact with the ground. Charon had landed to the left and was holding the railing, his legs bloodied―

Jericho strode up to the ghoul and laughed meanly. He grabbed Charon by the collar, then pulled a combat knife from his side and stabbed him under the ribs, up into the heart. It went in up the hilt―she couldn't even draw a breath to speak, her eyes widening in fear. _What―fuck―!_

Jericho spat on Charon, twisting the knife deeper. He pushed the ghoul away, the knife sticking from his chest, and turned to Emily.

 _Oh, fuck fuck fuck―!_

She tried to scream but nothing was coming, just wheezy breaths of panic and small squeaking noises. _No, no―Oh, God―_

Jericho grabbed her around the shoulder with one hand and pushed her toward the shack. "Unlock the fuckin' _door,_ Emily," he snarled, in her ear. "C'mon, girl."

She breathed as quickly as she could, trying to make noise but she couldn't. Jericho pulled something from his side and she heard the soft snick of a switchblade. In the middle of the day in the normally busy settlement, it was the loudest sound she had ever heard.

"Je―" she started to say, and he pressed the blade to her throat.

 _"Unlock the fuckin' door,"_ he said, his voice promising violence.

She grabbed her keys and unlocked the door. Jericho shoved her inside the shack, slamming the door behind him. She landed face-first on the metal floor and yelped in pain.

"Think you're so fuckin' _smart,"_ he said, grabbing her by the back of her leather jacket. "So fuckin' nice and _tricky._ I got your fuckin' number, right here," he growled. He grabbed at his crotch and bared his nasty teeth at her.

"Wh―" He slammed her front onto the floor, roughly. Her head swum with pain.

"I didn't live to no old age just to be a fuckin' _game_ for some stupid bitch," he said, and put his boot on the back of her head.

She coughed awkwardly as her cheeks were squished into the metal. _"Fuck!"_ she cried, her voice coming back to her. _"Why―"_

He put his full weight on her head and lifted himself off the floor, and booted her hard in the stomach. She yelped again and covered her stomach with her arms, knees curling up under her on the floor. He gave a disgusting laugh. "That's what I like to see," he said, removing his foot from her head. "That ass all nice and pretty in the air. You're _all right,_ girl." He got down onto his knees.

Emily's eyes bugged out of her head and she tried to roll onto her side, but Jericho was already behind her. He pressed the switchblade into her back through a gap in her armor, placing it next to her spine. He grabbed her hip with one hand and rubbed his crotch into her ass. She opened her mouth and screamed―

He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her forehead into the floor, making the world spin. She went limp, groaning. Her nose started to bleed all over the place, pain lancing through her face. His hands were grabbing around her stomach, undoing her pants. She turned her head to the side― _no, no, no―_ she couldn't feel her voice.

She trembled in fear and the air was cold, as he jerkily pulled her pants down around her knees. "I told you," he said, sneering in her ear as he leaned over her. She heard buckles clinking together, felt his hand moving behind her. "If you scream anything, it's gonna be my name. Keep trying that, I'll cut those pretty little eyes of yours out of your _fuckin' head."_ He waved the knife in her vision, to prove his point. "Be good, you understand?"

Emily whimpered. Jericho slapped her ass and she jumped in surprise. He cackled, his hand rubbing against her skin. "You gotta say it," he said. "Do you fuckin' understand?"

Emily fought back the sobs that were trying to escape and groaned out, "Yes."

Jericho pulled himself upward off of her back and laid both hands on her hips. She cried out as he forced himself inside her, pushing into her. He groaned, throwing his head back. "Oh, _Christ,_ that hits the fuckin' spot!"

She sobbed, unable to stop herself. He felt as large as she had once imagined, pushing into her so hard it hurt. Her head scraped along the floor as he pounded into her, muttering curses to himself and groaning in pleasure. Unwanted pleasure rolled through her stomach and thighs along with pain, and she cried harder.

 _"Jesus,_ Emily," he grunted, speeding up his movement, "Jesus _Christ!"_

Jericho didn't stop talking the whole time, slamming into her over and over. She stilled her sobs and blinked back her tears, keeping her eyes on the leg of the couch. It seemed to last forever, the pain and the stream of words from his mouth. The pain overcame the pleasure, and she was grateful for that.

 _Oh my God,_ she thought, _doesn't anyone see that Charon is dead out there? Someone―anyone―_

Finally he let out a long, loud groan and grabbed her hair with one hand. He pulled her up from the floor, his hips pounding into hers in a few rough thrusts. She stayed limp, her arms dangling, as he came inside her. Tears and blood fell to the floor below her.

"God _damn!"_ he breathed out, holding her up. He didn't move for a moment. She could feel his dick inside her, twitching, and heard his ragged breathing.

 _Please. Please be done._

The switchblade came up to her neck as he pulled her upright against his chest, and he gave a little snicker into her ear. "I didn't hear you _sayin'_ nothing," he said, threateningly.

She breathed out slowly and calmly, trying to think of how to get free. "Wasn't that good," she muttered, knowing it would set him off. She couldn't help it―it was who she was.

Jericho grunted and pressed the blade into her collarbone. "Maybe you got broken by that zombie cocksucker," he growled, and threw her forward. He pulled away from her and stood up, as she tried to get up off of the floor. "Oh, no," he said, grabbing the back of her hair again.

Then Jericho slammed her head into the floor again and the world went black.

* * *

 _"Wake the fuck up!"_

A hand slapped her across the face, and Emily jerked awake. Fuck!

"Glad you could join me," Jericho laughed. "It's about to get real _interesting."_

She whimpered and blinked away the remaining blackness in her eyes, looking around. Her feet were barely touching the floor―she was hanging from something on the ceiling. She squinted at a large metal hook that her hands were chained to, shaking off the last bit of grogginess. Her legs weren't tied but she was weak and in pain.

Where―? The... second room in her shack. It was empty but for a few shelves. Jericho had hung her up on a hook in her shack, and she had a gag around her mouth. She prodded it with her tongue and tasted turpentine. She heaved a little at the taste.

"No one's coming," he sneered at her. "I got your zombie downstairs, with a bullet in his head. I locked up the door tight, too. We got the _whole day_ to ourselves."

She muffed out a curse and kicked out her legs, weakly. Jericho was standing in the doorway in front of her. He was naked, and she looked up and down his body. Scars and burn marks, bites and bullet wounds met her eyes. His dick, in his hand, hard as a rock.

 _Fuck―_ he was stroking himself gently, leering at her. "Yeah, you look," he said meanly. "I'm gonna teach you a _lesson,_ girl."

 _Fuck!_ She was naked too! She kicked out again, throwing her legs out as far as she could. Jericho laughed and dodged her easily.

"Keep it up," he said. "You ain't gotta have much energy left." He grabbed one of her ankles and pushed her backward, then released her. She swung on the hook, nausea overtaking her.

She tried to swear around the gag and he just laughed at her. "Don't worry. I'll _know_ when you're screaming my name, bitch."

He moved forward―she kicked out a leg and he grabbed her by the thighs, pushing her up a little so that she was resting at his stomach with his dick rubbing on her ass. She squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered. _Oh, God―_

"That mess downstairs, you earned yourself that one," he snickered. "Fuckin' _taunting_ me, like a stupid little bitch. I ain't no goddamn pushover." He squeezed her thighs with both hands and she groaned in pain. "I didn't survive the fuckin' wastes for _sixty-five years_ just to let some uppity bitch and her fuckin' zombie make a _fool_ out of me." He leaned forward, breathing hot air onto her face. She struggled against him, wiggling around on the hook. The chains rattled loudly in the nearly empty room.

"Yeah, you keep doin' that," Jericho laughed. "I'm gonna make you so fuckin' tired, you won't be moving for a goddamn week."

Emily groaned in pain as he squeezed her thighs again, rubbing himself along her ass. He grinned, then pulled away. Her eyes flew open as he slammed himself into her again. A loud cry of pain, muffled by the gag, erupted from her throat.

"Ah! _Shit!"_ he hissed. "You feel so fuckin' _good!"_ He chuckled and pushed into her, all the way, staring her in the eyes. "Ain't so fucking tough, now, _are_ ya?"

She cried silently, watching him abuse her. Jericho wrapped one arm around her ass and put his mouth on her neck, crushing her into him. He held her still for a moment, one hand on her thigh, muttering to himself. His hand on her ass twitched, torn fingernails scratching her skin.

She let her mind go blank, trying to distance herself from the scene. As Jericho pressed his hand into her muscles and held her thigh, grinding himself into her, she heard that stupid holotape floating through her mind again.

He bit her neck and used his teeth to hold onto her, pressing himself even harder into her. Dull waves of pleasure registered in her brain, but she only heard the music.

 _Well, thousands of folks back east, they say, are leavin' home most ev'ry day..._ Jericho groaned and moved his hand from her thigh to her breast, pinching, twisting. She had to have yelled in pain, but she couldn't hear herself anymore.

 _And they're beatin' the hot old dusty way, to the California line..._ She felt a rumble in her throat, knew she was tightening around him as he was inside her. He laughed around the skin in his teeth and muttered something foul. Emily's eyes closed to the world.

 _'Cross the desert sands they roll, a-getting out of that old dust bowl..._ Her legs were trembling. She felt the tingles up and down her back, through her thighs, spreading through her stomach. _Oh, God,_ he'd done it―

Emily gritted her teeth and muffled out a moan as she came around him, her body pushing against his movement. Inside her head she was screaming, crying, clawing at her own eyes. She felt the tears rolling down her face, felt the little shudders that he was drawing out of her.

He pulled away, watching her swinging on the hook. She was limp and still shuddering, waves of unwanted pleasure rolling over her.

"Heh," he grunted. "Still not screaming?" He spat across the room with a cough. "Guess we're going to have to do this until _you get it right."_

Emily only cried, her body uselessly dangling on the hook. She was too tired to fight, anymore.

 _It's a paradise to live in or see,_  
 _But believe it or not,_  
 _You won't find it so hot,_  
 _If you ain't got the do-re-mi._


End file.
